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CONSTANTINE I 

AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 




THE AUTHOR 



CONSTANTINE I 
AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 



BY 
PAXTON HIBBEN, A.B., A.M., RR.G.S. 

Chevalier of the Order of St. Stanislas, 
OflBcer of the Order of the Redeemer 



ILLUSTRATED 




NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO. 

1920 



Copyright, 1920, by 
The Centuby Co. 



Published, June, 1920 



JUN 23 i'dii] 



^^^ ^<^ 






©CI,A570427 



TH AYTOY MEFAAEITHTI 

TO 

BA2IAEI TON EAAHNON 

KONSTANTINO 

SIRE! 

I do not believe in kings 
nor in the business of kings. 

But I believe in you, Sir, as 
a Man. 

It is therefore not to the 
King of the Hellenes that I 
dedicate this book, but to the 
eincere democrat, the leader and 
comrade of his people, the brave 
and able soldier, the loyal 
friend^ the devoted patriot and 
the generous, open-hearted man 
that I have found you. 

Athens, January 25, 1917. 



FOREWORD 

From the first contact, Latins and Greeks looked upon each 
other with mistrust, and the fundamental antagonism which 
separated the two civilizations was manifest in mutual suspi- 
cions, continual difficulties, incessant conflicts and reciprocal 
accusations of violence and treachery. ... It was easy to see 
that Greek hospitality did not inspire the crusaders with un- 
. bounded confidence. It must be admitted, however, that the 
Latins were extraordinarily uncomfortable guests. . . . 

The westerners, moreover, complained bitterly of the ingrati- 
tude, the perfidy, the treachery of the Greek emperor and his 
subjects, and they held Alexis solely responsible for all the 
final failures of the crusade. As a matter of fact, that is a 
pure legend, carefully fostered by all the enemies of the Byzan- 
tine monarchy, and the echo of which, transmitted down the 
ages, explains so many injustices and stubborn prejudices which 
even to-day unconsciously persist against Byzance. 

In reality, once Alexis had treated with the crusaders, he was 
true to his word, and if the rupture came, its cause should be 
sought above all in the bad faith of the Latin princes. Charles 
Diehl, " Figures Byzantine," vol II. 

What appears to have happened a thousand years ago be- 
tween the Crusaders and the Greek emperors of the Byzantine 
Empire has repeated itself to-day between the Allied forces in 
the Near East and the Greek King Constantine. It would be 
difficult to construe a more faithful characterization of the 
spirit of events in Greece in the last five years than that given 
by Mr. Diehl, writing of the Byzantine Empire. 

The pages which follow were written in the spring of 1917. 
I had been in Greece, Macedonia, and Serbia since the summer 
of 1915. On the ground, unrestricted by censorship, I had 

vii 



FOREWORD 

been able to follow step by step the progress of the diplomacy 
of the great European Powers in respect to Greece, so like their 
recent diplomacy in respect to Armenia. When I returned to 
America I had a talk with one of the best informed men in the 
United States. 

" You have no idea what is going on in Greece," I told him. 
" You cannot have. The censorship is such that you get noth- 
ing but one side — garbled accounts devoid of truth or propa- 
ganda purposely misleading." 

" You are wrong," he replied. " We do know, in a way. Of 
course we do not know the details, but we have it fairly clear in 
mind that the Allies have been pulling some pretty rough stuff 
in Greece. The American newspaper-reader puts two and two 
together more shrewdly than you think. He knows, for ex- 
ample, that it is being framed up on your friend King Constan- 
tine. He suspects that France and England are going to drive 
him out of Greece. I do not say that what they are going to do 
is right. I say that they are going to do it, whether it is right 
or wrong, and I get my ideas from following the press despatches 
like any American newspaper-reader. We realize that the 
French and the British have let themselves in for a bad business 
in Greece by being a little hasty in their action, and that they 
feel their prestige will be hurt if they turn back now. They 
feel that they have got to go through with it, cost what may. 
They will naturally try to justify themselves any way they can. 
They will blackguard Constantine like a pickpocket and adver- 
tise Venizelos as an angel from heaven. They have to ; it 's 
their game. 

" But I think you will find that the American newspaper- 
reader will not be badly fooled by all of this froth. Some day 
the war will be over, and the truth will come out. You will find 
then that it will not surprise people much. But it is no use to 
try to tell them about it now; they have something else on 
their minds. Greece is only one corner of the big business — 
the war. When the war has been won, people may look into the 

viii 



FOREWORD 

matter of what has been done in Greece, or they may forget 
all about it. You never can tell." 

Nevertheless, I wrote this book then. I myself was eager to 
get into the war. Virtually the only dispassionate witness of 
events I have here set forth, I felt that I should set down in 
black and white what I had seen and knew before anything 
could happen to prevent my writing it. Every phase of the 
Greeek tragedy was very clear and living in my mind in the 
early days of 1917, and that is what I wrote, the living truth, 
before time and long service in the army, in the United States 
and the A. E. F., could dim or confuse any of it. That is what 
this book is. 

As I wrote the pages which follow, I sent a carbon copy to the 
State Department for its information. When the book was 
printed and ready for publication, I took a copy to Mr. Creel's 
office, and said I was quite ready to conform to any desire the 
administration might express regarding its publication. There 
was not the slightest suggestion of opposition to its appearance. 

But while the book was being written, precisely what my 
friend had predicted was taking place in Greece. No whisper 
of what was going on under cover reached the American people, 
however. We had entered the war against Germany on April 
6 ; but our allies saw in that fact no reason to share with the 
American people their secret intentions toward Greece, nor 
the unusual course they were even then planning to follow in 
respect to a sovereign people determined to remain as neutral 
as Spain or Holland, and for much the same reasons. 

On March 19, 1917, Ribot replaced Briand as Premier of 
France. Immediately, negotiations looking to the forcible 
deposition of the constitutionally elected head of the Greek state 
originated with the new French Government. Russia, united 
to Greece by ties of a common church, was no longer in a posi- 
tion to oppose this French project; the Italian Government 
was unalterably hostile to it; even in England the suggestion 
shocked the Government, and when it was specifically proposed 

ix 



FOREWORD ' 

to Mr. Lloyd George and Sir Robert Cecil on May 4, a month 
after the entry of the United States into the war, the scheme 
was frowned upon. 

Nevertheless, the French Government continued preparations 
to this end, of which the people of France as well as those who 
were fighting beside the French were kept in ignorance, and the 
full extent and purpose of which even the governments allied 
with France were unaware.-"^ The French Foreign Relations 
Committee of the Senate, under Clemenceau's chairmanship, 
moved " the appointment by the Protecting Powers of a single 
representative at Athens, capable of giving the decisions taken 
by the Allies consecutiveness, firmness and dignity, by gathering 
in its hands the reins of the Entente chariot," and Senator 
Jonnart was chosen that single representative. On May 27 he 
and French War Minister Painleve went to London to obtain 
British consent to more drastic action in Greece. Mr. Lloyd 
George insisted, however, that at least the semblance of liberty 
of action on the part of the Greek people be retained, and that 
the new coercive measures to be adopted in Greece be calculated 
to compel the Greeks to dethrone their own king rather than 
that the French and British themselves commit the overt act. 
A program of three successive steps in compulsion of the 
Greeks was agreed upon: (1) the wheat crop of Thessaly, 
upon which the entire population of Greece depended for bread, 
was to be seized; (2) an ultimatum requiring Greece's entry into 
the war on the side of the Entente was to be presented to King 
Constantine; (3) the Isthmus of Corinth was to be seized 
militarily by the Allies, thus absolutely cutting off from Athens 

1 " The whole Italian press was violently hostile to M. Venizelos. It 
made no secret of preferring Constantine to him. . . . However, in an 
enterprise having as its aim the deposition of Constantine and the return 
of Venizelos to power, it would be imprudent to ignore the state of mind 
of a part of the Italian public. There was a considerable chance that 
Italy might regard with no very favorable eye — might indeed raise a 
protest against an adventure upon the principle of which it had taken so 
much time to obtain an accord between the cabinets of London and Paris." 
Raymond Recouly, " M. Jonnart en Grece et I'Abdication de Constan- 
tin,"" pp. 72-75. 

X 



FOREWORD 

and the remainder of Greece the entire Greek Army, which, as 
an act of good faith toward the Allies, King Constantine had 
concentrated in the Peloponnesus.^ Should all of these 
measures fail to produce the submission of the Greeks to the 
will of Erance and England, the British Government agreed to 
the dethronement of King Constantine, but on the express con- 
dition that force was to be employed only as a last resort and 
in the event that King Constantine's partizans were guilty of 
acts of hostility toward the Allies. The British Government 
was unwilling to countenance another bombardment without 
notice to a city filled with women and children unless there was 
at least a plausible excuse. 

Judging by his actions. Senator Jonnart had not the vaguest 
idea of complying with these conditions, nor did his govern- 
ment intend that he should. M. Raymond Recouly, the French 
chronicler of this epoch, is explicit on that head.^ Jonnart 
lost no time. Arriving in Paris from London with Painleve 
on May 30, he was in Brindisi on June 4, whence he embarked at 
once, and secretly, for Corfu. Here he arranged with Admiral 
Gauchet, in command of the Allied fleet, for a naval force to 
protect with its heavy artillery a landing of troops both on the 
Isthmus of Corinth and within sight of Athens. On June 5 
Jonnart was at Keratsina Bay in consultation with the British 
and French Ministers to Greece. He did not, however, consult 
either the Italian or the Russian Ministers, nor did he even 
land. On June 7 he was in Saloniki, submitting his plans to the 
approval of Venizelos and arranging the cooperation of the 

1 pp. 524, 525, 545. 

2 " The more he thought about it, the more M. Jonnart was convinced 
that to accomplish the result under the most favorable conditions these 
measures should not be taken successively, but simultaneously. , . . M. 
Jonnart was confronted by this dilemma: if he followed the instructions he 
had received literally, he would leave Constantine a possibility of resistance. 
... In order that the business might be carried out comfortably without 
spilling any blood, it was indispensable to modify somewhat the execution 
of the measures planned. M. Jonnart courageously took this decision. 
He decided to make the modification." Raymond Recouly, op. cit. pp. 
71, 72. 

xi 



FOREWORD 

Allied military forces under General Sarrail. M. Raymond 
Recouly summarizes the result: 

It was decided, in order to avoid all possibility of resistance 
and to retain the peaceable character of the operation, to carry 
out at one and the same time (1) the occupation of Thessaly; 
(2) the occupation of the Isthmus of Corinth; (3) a landing 
of troops in the neighborhood of Athens. 

It was expected that the simultaneous execution of these 
three acts, rapidly carried through, would make it quite im- 
possible for Constantine to attempt anything whatever. 

Definite plans were therefore made: the ultimatum was to be 
delivered to Constantine the night of the 10th; the invasion 
of Thessaly was to take place on the night of the lOth-llth; 
the occupation of the Isthmus of Corinth and the landing of 
troops in Attica was to be carried out at the same moment, and 
the French General Staff immediately set about the arrange- 
ments for the departure of the expeditionary troops, so they 
might be in position and ready to act upon the date fixed.-^ 

At the instance of Venizelos, Crown Prince George, who had 
been trained and educated for his post as chief of state under 
the Greek Constitution, was to be excluded from the throne, also. 
A younger and more tractable member of the family, Prince 
Alexander, was to be imposed upon the Greeks as king. 

The entire character of the action to which Mr. Lloyd George 
had given a reluctant consent had altered. There was no longer 
any question of a series of coercive steps calculated to induce 
the Greek people to act. The seizure of the wheat crop of Thes- 
saly had become the military occupation of Thessaly ; the use 
of troops as a last resort to force the abdication of King 
Constantine, under threat of another fleet bombardment of 
Athens, had become a first step. When it came to basing any 
practical action on the idea that the people of Greece would 
rally to Venizelos the moment King Constantine was out of the 
way, a legend reiterated both in the French and British press 

1 Raymond Recouly, op. cit. pp. 88, 89. 

xii 



FOREWORD 

for two years, that assumption was promptly rejected as a 
dangerous fallacy, and preparations were made to impose the 
Cretan in power only after the French military occupation had 
completely disposed of any opposition to Venizelos's return. 
In this view Venizelos, feeling that there might be some per- 
sonal peril in accompanying the French expeditionary for^ce, 
readily agreed. ' 

The invasion of Thessaly began on June 10, but it was not 
until the following day that Jonnart presented his ultimatum 
to Prime Minister Za'imis. In the name of the " Protecting 
Powers," of which one, Russia, could not and did not approve 
this action, while another, Great Britain, had explicity required 
a method of procedure wholly other than that followed, Jon- 
nart demanded the abdication of King Constantine and a reply 
within twenty-four hours. King Constantine, the document 
stated, would be left free to designate one of his heirs as his 
successor, with the approval of the " Protecting Powers." A 
memorandum presented at the same time, however, excluded 
Crown Prince George and virtually forced the designation of the 
king's second son. Prince Alexander, who had already been 
chosen by Venizelos. A written pledge was given by Jonnart 
that no reprisals against the supporters of King Constantine 
would be tolerated. 

King Constantine called a crown council at once and made 
known his intention to save Greece further bloodshed and suffer- 
ing by complying immediately and literally with the demands 
of the ultimatum, precisely as he had complied throughout with 
all the demands made upon him by the self-styled " Protecting 
Powers of Greece." To every counsel of resistance — and there 
were many, for the Greeks adore him — he was adamant. As 
constitutional commander in chief of the army he issued a formal 
order against any demonstration. He put the entire weight of 
his popularity in the scale to prevent what might have proved 
a hideous business both for Greece and for France and Eng- 
land. He asked his people, as they loved him, to raise no hand 

xiii 



FOREWORD 

to prevent his departure. That same nig^ht Premier Zaimis 
replied to Jonnart that " His Majesty the King, as ever mind- 
ful of the interest of Greece, has decided to leave the country 
with the crown prince, and designates as his successor Prince 
Alexander." 

Despite this immediate and complete acceptance of Jonnart's 
demands, the French seemed unable to resist the temptation to 
beat the drum and rattle the saber. Though there was neither 
need nor excuse for it, a French infantry brigade, a regiment 
of artillery, and a regiment of Russian mercenaries were landed 
iii the Pireus and marched against Athens. It was a mad thing 
to do, and only the utmost personal efforts of the king avoided 
that open conflict which the French seemed determined to 
provoke. 

One June 12 King Constantine, Queen Sophie, and their 
children, Crown Prince George and the princesses Helen and 
Irene, left Greece. It is characteristic that King Constantine 
refused to embark on any save a Greek ship. They went 
directly to Switzerland, where they are still living very modestly 
in a hotel, like any other transients. 

No sooner were the French in absolute military control of 
Greece than the guaranty given by Jonnart that no reprisals 
against the supporters of King Constantine would be tolerated 
was ignored. The French demanded and obtained, within a 
week of giving the pledge in question, thirty prominent Greeks, 
who were placed under arrest, without trial, and taken to 
Corsica. A long series of arrests, trials by drum-head courts 
martial, executions, banishments, and imprisonments followed, 
until finally the ghastly train of political persecutions was 
halted by the mediation of the American minister. 

On June 21 Jonnart summoned Venizelos from Saloniki, and 
on June 24 he informed Prince Alexander, recently sworn in as 
King of the Hellenes, that Venizelos would be made prime min- 
ister. At the same time Jonnart also ordered the convocation 
of the last Boule in which Venizelos had a majority to give a 

xiv 



FOREWORD 

certain semblance of representative government to this admin- 
istration wholly imposed by France. On June 27 Venizelos 
and his new cabinet took office. 

These events were in progress when this book was about to 
appear. In certain quarters it was felt that its publication at 
that precise moment would embarrass our associates in the 
war. This intimation was conveyed to the publishers. I had 
already expressed my willingness to follow whatever course 
fmight be thought wise in the matter of the publication of the 
book. Its issue was therefore postponed. 

The smoke of war has since, in some measure, cleared away. 
It is now generally known, and our Government has been con- 
vinced, that the charge repeatedly brought against King 
Constantine that he had any understanding either written or 
verbal with Germany or any one in Germany, or that he was 
moved in the exercise of his constitutional duties by any con- 
siderations whatever save the good of his country and the will 
of his people, was wholly without foundation. Press despatches 
from London and Paris reporting that King Constantine or 
Queen Sophie had gone to Germany when they left Greece, that 
Crown Prince George had volunteered for service with the 
German Army, and a constant stream of similar propaganda, 
have proved to be as groundless as the accusations against 
King Constantine which were floated to excuse in some degree 
the action taken against him by France, with the acquiescence of 
Great Britain. 

t All of this is of little consequence. What is of great conse- 
quence, however, is that during the war and after our entry 
into it as an ally of France and Great Britain, without our 
knowledge and consent the constitution of a little, but a brave 
and fine, people was nullified by the joint action of two of our 
allies; the neutrality of a small country was violated, the will 
of its people set at naught, its laws broken, its citizens perse- 
cuted, its press muzzled. By force a government was imposed 
upon this free people, and by force that government has been 

XV 



FOREWORD V 

and is to-day maintained in absolute power. In the words of 
General Sarrail, " Venizelist Greece has become a British 
dominion." ^ He might have added a French colony as well, 
and been within the truth. 

The process by which this was brought about is herein set 
forth in detail. It is not a pretty story. Whether our allies 
did or not, a great many Americans went into this war with 
very definite ideals. They agreed with the President that " no 
peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recognize and 
accept the principle that governments derive all their just 
powers from the consent of the governed," and they fought 
" that no nation should seek to extend its polity over any other 
nation or people, but that every people should be left free to 
determine its own polity, its own way of development, unhin- 
dered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great 
and powerful." 

We have been sorely disillusioned, but we have not lost our 
ideal or our faith in the principles for which we fought. We 
still believe that " they are the principles of mankind, and 
must prevail." 

The time has come when Greece is entitled to a hearing. 
That is why I am publishing this book now just as it was written 
three years ago. 

New York, May 1, 1920. 

1 La Grfece Veniz61iste. " La Revue de Paris," December 15, 1919. 



XVl 



CONTENTS 
PART I 

CHAPTEB INTRIGUE PAGE 

I Greece in 1914 3 

II Greece in the First Half op 1915 . 17 

III The Serbian Treaty 34 

IV The Saloniki Adventure .... 53 
V Serbia Abandoned 68 

VI The First Blockade 89 

VII CONSTANTINE I TaKES A StAND . .107 

VIII Wheels Within Wheels .... 125 
PART II 

COERCION 

IX Encroachments 143 

X King Constantine Speaks His Mind • 158 

XI The Question op Good Faith . . . 173 



XII Venizelos Attacks His King 

XIII The Transport op the Serbs 

XIV FortRupel 

XV The First Ultimatum . 

XVI The Bulgarian Invasion . 



188 
205 
221 
234 
252 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XVII The Warrior King Unsheathes His 

SwoRi? 276 



PART III 

starvation 

XVIII The Second Ultimatum .... 293 

XIX A Cabinet Formed for War . , . 310 

XX Venizelos Declares Revolution . . 333 

XXI The Entente Refuses Greece as an 

Ally 347 

XXII The Seizure of the Greek Fleet . 365 

XXIII The Venizelist Invasion op Old 

Greece 386 

XXIV Admiral Dartige du Fournet in Con- 
trol 404 

XXV The Battle of Athens .... 440 

XXVI Anathema! 473 

XXVII The Unending Blockade .... 526 

Epilogue . . ... . . . . 547 

Appendices 551 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 



The Author Frontispiece 

Autograph Notes made by Foreign Minister Zo- 

graphos 24 

Constantine I 49 

"General de Lardemelle was at Kafardar" ... 75 

King Peter of Serbia at Aedjpsos 85 

"The Greek Evacuation of Saloniki Began" . . 151 

The French Laying Out their Camp at Zeitenlik . 185 

Sarrail's Cretan Police 243 

Andrew, Prince of Greece 265 

Princess Alice of Battenberg 303 

Greek Artillery at Ca valla 321 

Rear Admiral Hubert Cardale, R.H.N. . . .375 

"What was left of the Irish Brigade was of some 

use" 397 

George, Duke of Sparta 431 

"The Rolling Stock Waiting in Saloniki the Com- 
pletion of the Athens-Saloniki Railway" . . 449 

General Sarrail 475 

The Anathema of Venizelos . , 519 



/ 



CONSTANTINE I 

AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 



CONSTANTINE I 

AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 
CHAPTER I 

GREECE IN 1914 

"The cardinal error of the Entente powers has 
been to consider their Balkan problem as a polit- 
ical question, not a military one. They have 
never taken the Balkans seriously as a field for 
military operations. They have tried by intrigue 
to get something for nothing, without risk to 
themselves, in Bulgaria, in Serbia, in Rumania, 
and in Greece. If they had spent a tenth the ef- 
fort in studying and carrying out a serious mili- 
tary campaign in the Balkans that they have in 
dabbling in the internal politics of the various 
Balkan States, they would have succeeded where 
they have failed. And the war would probably 
be over by now." 

Thus King Constantine of Greece, after two 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

and a half years of experience with the policy of 
the Entente powers in the Balkans. Essentially 
a soldier himself, the military side naturally looms 
large to him. Fundamentally direct, sincere, and 
incapable of intrigue, he despises the jockeying 
between the Entente diplomatists and the various 
party leaders in the Balkan States, which has re- 
sulted in a splitting of the Balkans among them- 
selves to the disaster of the countries concerned. 
Finally, a man of action, used to the quick de- 
cisions of the battle-field, the King of the Hel- 
lenes has been frankly intolerant Of the subtleties 
of diplomatists, and, above all, of the hesitations of 
the governments of the Allied powers. Much of 
the legend of his pro-Germanism arises from his 
appreciation of the unerring speed with which the 
German designs in the Balkans have been carried 
out. King Constantine lives in the Balkans. It 
is his sphere of action, and he knows his Balkans 
like a book. To him, therefore, it is less signifi- 
cant that the French defeated the Germans at the 
Battle of the Marne or held them at Verdun than 
that the French marched into Serbia a year later 
— and then marched out again, leaving the Serbs 
to be crushed. This is the view of every Greek 



GREECE IN 1914 

and every Serb; indeed, of every man in the Bal- 
kans. His horizon is bounded by the interests 
vital to him and his country. The Allied powers 
are judged in the Balkans by what they have ac- 
compHshed there, not in France, Italy, or Russia. 
It is largely for this reason that the judgment is 
not favorable and that to-day the influence of the 
Entente powers is weaker in the Balkans than 
anywhere else in the world. 

I met King Constantine for the first time early 
in September, 1915, at his country chateau, "De- 
kaleia," some fifteen miles from Athens, at 
Tatoy, on the slopes of Mount Parnes. I had 
just come from France and Italy, and the 
king was eager for the trained impressions of a 
correspondent who had seen both sides of the 
great conflict. His questions were those of a 
soldier seeking to divine the relative values of the 
warring armies and their respective chances of 
success. As he talked with perfect frankness 
and deep interest in the subject, he was himself 
a study. For King Constantine I looks every 
inch a king — and there are a good many inches 
to look it, as the Greek sovereign is six foot six 
and weighs about two hundred and thirty pounds. 

6 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Just at that period he was thin from his recent 
ilLiess, however, and was in flannels, not uniform. 
But he is impressive in any costume. More 
democratic, perhaps, than any monarch of his day, 
he has known always how to keep the authority 
of kingship about him. When little Princess 
Catherine, his youngest child, was born during 
the Second Balkan War, King Constantine made 
the army and navy of Greece her godfathers. 
In the Greek Church the fact creates a relation- 
ship between the real father and the godfather 
which is expressed by the Greek word koum- 
baros. King Constantine is, therefore, the 
houmharos of each soldier, and each sailor of 
Greece. As such, he is intimate with them, and 
they with him ; they regard him as a soldier, like 
themselves, and he looks upon himself as a soldier, 
like the least of his subjects. For in Greece 
every able-bodied man is a soldier. 

But when he is being king, he is king indeed. 
On occasions of ceremony, in full dress, with blue 
and white plumes on his helmet and marshal's 
baton in hand, he is the personification of maj- 
esty. He drops the vernacular, which he is ac- 
customed to use with his soldiers. He embodies 

6 



GREECE IN 1914 

the idea of sovereignty as few men have em- 
bodied that idea in the history of the world. 

King Constantine then stated very frankly ^ 
the thesis he has always since maintained, that 
in principle the present war is one of great 
states with huge armies and immense reservoirs 
of credit ; that for a small state to enter the war 
voluntarily is madness, unless the small state 
is able to discount a decided advantage to be 
secured in no other way ; and, finally, that the es- 
sential condition of the participation of a small 
state in the general European hostilities must be 
a definite program of immediate action, having 
at least a prevailing chance of rapid success. 

On the latter point the ideas of the King of 
the Hellenes in respect to his own country were 
very clear. He pointed out that Greece is to- 
day, and has been since the Turkish War of 1897, 
in the hands of a receiver; that while the last 
two successful Balkan wars had doubled the ter- 
ritory of Hellas, they had also cost a vast deal 
of money and, in the new territory acquired, had 
opened up an endless vista of expenditures for 
the development of the islands, Epirus, and Mace- 
donia that would require a considerable capi- 

7 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

talization to carry out. A war — especially such 
a war as that now raging — would sink Greece 
further in the mire of insolvency and put off for 
years, perhaps for generations, the work of re- 
building and consolidating his doubled kingdom. 

Moreover, King Constantine laid stress on the 
fact that the increase in the number of in- 
habitants of Greece through the accession of the 
redeemed provinces had added many hetero- 
geneous elements to the population of the coun- 
try — elements to a certain extent not even Greek, 
and accustomed to a concept of responsibilities of 
government wholly at variance with the essential 
democracy of Hellas. Under Ottoman rule the 
Greek got what he wanted by paying bakshish; 
under the democracy of Greece he must secure 
what he requires by passing laws which will be 
equal for all, and by personally bearing his share 
of the heavy burden of taxation, the heritage of 
generations of costly struggle for the freedom of 
the Greeks. 

The territory acquired by the Balkan wars — 
Macedonia, Epirus, and the Greek islands — has 
a population of 2,066,647, as against a total popu- 
lation of 2,631,972 for Greece before their ac- 

8 



GREECE IN 1914 

quisition/ The work of consolidating this im- 
mense accretion of new citizens must necessarily 
be long and difficult. For its accomplishment, 
King Constantine declared peace to be essential. 

Plainly the Greek monarch did not share the 
dreams of still further aggrandizement for Hel- 
las voiced by his prime minister, E. K. Venize- 
los. Indeed, the sovereign looked upon any im- 
mediate increase in the size of Greece as a con- 
tingency fraught with peril for the Hellenistic 
ideal, kept burning in* old Greece through the cen- 
turies. 

*'Mind you," he said, "I do not say we shall not 
go to war, — on the side of the Entente, of course, 
— as all our* interests are bound up with the En- 
tente. We could not go to war against the En-?' 
tente, and nobody in Greece dreams of doing it." 
But if we enter the war at all, it will have to be 
with a fixed role which can be quickly played to 
success or failure before the country has been- 
ruined by a long campaign."' 

In September, 1915, Constantine I saw for 
Greece no prospect of playing such a part. Im- 
mediately after the outbreak of the European 

1 Census of 1907. 




CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

War, a cabinet council under the presidency of the 
King of the Hellenes, and with his hearty concur- 
rence, expressed the sympathy of Greece with the 
Entente powers and more particularly with her 
Balkan ally, Serbia, and decided that Greece 
should maintain an attitude characterized as one 
of "benevolent neutrality" toward Serbia and her 
allies in the Great War. 

King Constantine, moreover, rejected without 
a moment's hesitation a German offer to join the 
Central empires in return for Monastir and the 
surrounding parts of Serbia, which are inhabited 
largely by Greeks. By this refusal the Greco- 
Serbian treaty of alliance of May 19, 1913, re- 
mained intact; but construed by the Greek Gov- 
ernment as applicable only to Balkan warfare, it 
was not called into play. Saloniki was at the dis- 
posal of the Serbs as the door through which their 
war material might enter. The best information 
and advice of the Greek general staff was at their 
call. The Greeks granted Admiral Hubert S. 
Cardale of the British naval mission in Greece, 
serving by virtue of that position as an officer in 
the Royal Hellenic Navy, leave of absence to go 
to Serbia to serve with the British naval unit 

10 



GREECE IN 1914 

defending Belgrade. The Greeks lent the Serhs 
money, arms, supplies, and men, and in every 
way of practical, unsentimental value aided 
Serbia to the utmost. 

This was not sufficient, however, in the view of 
Premier Venizelos. He did not share his sov- 
ereign's apprehensions of danger within the 
Greek state from further territorial increases, 
like inverted pyramids of population where only 
the apex was actively Greek. To Venizelos the 
present war was an opportunity for aggrandize- 
ment of Hellas such as would never come again. 
He wanted to profit at once and to the utmost 
from the opportunity by throwing Greece uncon- 
ditionally into the arms of the Entente powers. 
He was impatient of any caution or of any well- 
considered plan of cooperation, consumed only 
by a fear lest the war should end before Greece, 
by her participation, should have gained vast 
territorial compensations in Asia Minor or else- 
where, a smaller dream of empire than that con- 
ceived by the German kaiser, but not less im- 
perialistic. 

On August 18, 1914, this difference in view as 
to the stand Greece should take toward Europe 

11 







^ 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

at war came to a head. The Greek foreign minis- 
ter, Dr. George Streit, an international jurist of 
world-wide reputation and one of the judges of 
The Hague Court, resigned from the Venizelos 
cabinet, in consequence. Sir Edward Grey 
finally telegraphed the Greek premier that his 
persistence was embarrassing to the British Gov- 
ernment and advised Venizelos to cease for the 
moment his warlike propaganda in Greece. The 
same month Great Britain suggested tentatively 
that Greece cede Cavalla to Bulgaria as a means 
of securing the cooperation or at least the 
friendly neutrality of Greece's late enemy. The 
mere suggestion nearly caused the fall of the 
Venizelos cabinet, so much opposition was there in 
Greece to the surrender of any of the territory 
recently won from Bulgaria. Sir Edward Grey 
accordingly dropped the matter, to return to it in 
January, 1915. 

Meanwhile, however, the Entente powers, un- 
der the threat of a second Austrian invasion of 
Serbia, finally summoned Greece in October, 
1914, to apply the Greco-Serbian treaty and come 
to the aid of her ally in the struggle against 
Austria. It was Venizelos who refused this time, 

12 



GREECE IN 1914 

making the cooperation of Bulgaria and Rumania 
in the hostihties against Austria a condition prec- 
edent to Greece's leaving neutrality. Further 
insistence on the part of France and Great Brit- 
ain, and even a promise to send two divisions 
of French and British troops as a moral pres- 
sure to keep Bulgaria at least neutral, were un- 
availing. Serbia was already being overrun by 
her enemy, but Mr. Venizelos could not be per- 
suaded that the Greco- Serbian treaty required 
Greece to succor her ally so long as Bulgaria re- 
mained a menace on the flank of any Greek army 
that might march into Serbia. Every effort to 
move Rumania proved equally fruitless. Greece, 
at the instance of Austria and Germany, trans- 
mitted to Serbia a proposal of separate peace. 
The Serbs refused. When the second invasion 
of Serbia had failed and the Austrians had again 
been swept across the Danube, Greece was still 
neutral — under the government of Mr. Venizelos, 
whom, four months previously, the British foreign 
secretary had been at some pains to hold in check 
lest he thrust Greece willy-nilly into war on the 
side of the Entente. 

At that time Venizelos gave as his reason for 

13 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

yiiot leaving neutrality the fear that Bulgaria 
\ / would join the Central empires and attack 
Greece. Nine months later, when Bulgaria had 
actually joined the Central empires and was 
ready to attack Greece, the sarae Venizelos, no 
longer a prime minister responsible to the Greek 
people, maintained that the Greco- Serbian 
treaty required Greece to assist Serbia even 
against a combined attack by the Germans, 
Austrians, and Bulgarians. Speaking of the 
Greco- Serbian treaty a year later, in October, 
1915, he declared, "The feeling of loyalty to our 
national obligations has never wavered even for 
a moment." 

Throughout the present war the attitude of each 
of the Balkan States has been influenced more 
by that of the remaining States than by any other 
consideration. Greece has been closely allied 
with Serbia since 1913, but not with Rumania. 
Nevertheless, all three States were moved during 
the first year of the war by the same fear: that 
Bulgaria, with the assistance of Turkey and per- 
haps of Germany and Austria, would seek to an- 
nul the treaty of Bukharest and regain the terri- 
tory of which she had been deprived at the con- 

14 



GREECE IN 1914 

elusion of the Second Balkan War. From the 
moment of Turkey's entry into the European 
conflict, in November, 1914, the alinement in the 
Balkans was evident: Bulgaria and Turkey on 
one side; Greece, Serbia, and Rumania on the 
other. It was a condition, not a theory. Sir Ed- 
ward Grey's plan to reconstitute the Balkan block 
of 1912 was mere theory, taking no account of 
Bulgaria's deep-seated resentment against the 
treaty of Bukharest and her scarcely concealed 
intention to overthrow its decisions at the first 
propitious moment. 

In fostering the reconstitution of the Balkan 
block. Sir Edward Grey was counseled, perhaps 
led, by Prime Minister Venizelos,^ who in the ne- 
gotiation of the treaty of Bucharest had already 
shown himself disposed to make concessions to 
conquered Bulgaria. The first point of differ- 
ence between the Greek premier and his sov- 
ereign was upon this head. The king, a trained 
soldier, preferred to regard Turkey and Bul- 

1 In this view of Mr. Venizelos's responsibility for the Allied 
policy in Greece at this period, my friend and colleague, George 
Renwick, correspondent of "The Daily Chronicle," agrees. "M. 
Venizelos aimed at the reconstruction of the Balkan League on a 
somewhat extended basis," he writes in "War Wanderings," p. 
250. 

15 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

garia as the potential enemies of Greece their 
pohcy had shown them, and to bend every energy 
to assure his army sufficient support from west- 
ern Europe to drive a war with them to a defi- 
nite, final conclusion. His plan was not to treat 
with Turkey and Bulgaria, but to defeat them, 
break the power of Turkey in Europe forever, 
and limit Bulgaria to the comparatively scant 
confines of the teri'itory actually inhabited in 
majority by Bulgarians. 

The British policy was guided rather by the 
subtle diplomacy of Venizelos than by the frank, 
military point of view of King Constantine. In- 
deed, throughout the Entente negotiations with 
Greece a certain recurring coincidence between 
the advocacy by Mr. Venizelos of a policy in re- 
spect to Greece and the adoption of an identical 
policy in respect to Greece by the governments 
of London and Paris leads to the assumption 
that the action of the Entente in the Balkans was 
rather directed by Mr. Venizelos than conceived 
in France or Great Britain. 



16 



CHAPTER II 

GREECE IN THE FIRST HALF OF 1915 

Two days before the war council in London 
debated the question of an attack on the Dar- 
danelles, Venizelos presented to his sovereign 
a memorandum, dated January 11,^ setting forth 
certain rather vague inducements held out early 
in January, 1915, by the Allied powers to Greece 
to enter into the war by joining the Dardanelles 
adventure. To guarantee Bulgaria's neutrality 
(and Venizelos scarcely ventured to hope to se- 
cure more than neutrahty from Bulgaria) the 
Greek prime minister proposed that Greece re- 
store to the Bulgars the port and province of 
Cavalla, recently won from them, and that she 
urge even greater sacrifices in favor of Bulgaria 
on the part of her ally, Serbia. An effort was 
also to be made to secure Rumania's cooperation 
with Serbia and Bulgaria in joining the Entente's 
operations against Turkey. 

The day following the war council's definite de- 

1 Appendix 1. 

17 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

cision to undertake a naval attack upon the Dar- 
danelles, Venizelos laid before his sovereign an- 
other memorandum, dated January 17,^ revealing 
Rumania's refusal to take part in the enterprise 
and forecasting that all concessions he was urg- 
ing would obtain at most only the neutrality of 
Bulgaria. Nevertheless, in this as in the first 
memorandum, Venizelos was eloquent in his in- 
sistence that the Allied offers be accepted at once. 
His original proposal of the cession of Cavalla 
is enlarged to the cession of the whole of the 
"Cazas," or districts of Sali-Chaban, Cavalla, and 
Drama, probably the richest piece of land for 
its size in the whole world. In return he speaks 
of vast possessions in Asia Minor of which the 
most he can say in the way of assurance from the 
Entente is, "I believe that, if we ask, there may 
be considerable probability of our request's being 
granted." In the same breath in which he speaks 
of Serbia's "obligation of alliance and motives 
of gratitude" toward Greece he coolly proposes 
to despoil this harrassed ally of the Doiran- 
Ghevgheli sector of Serbia, which, he says, "we 
shall also demand." 

1 Appendix 1. 

18 



GREECE IN THE FIRST HALF OF 1915 

As political jipciiments Venizelos's two memo- 
randa to King Constantine are without prece- 
dent in history. He transplants the populations 
of whole provinces; he outlines Bulgaria's prob- 
able future course as if he himself were directing 
it ; Serbia is moved about like a pawn on a chess- 
board; he disposes of the armies of the Entente 
as if he were their commander-in-chief; and 
brushes aside as a mere detail the administrative 
difficulties of Ottoman territory double the size 
of present Greece. Throughout he writes with 
the exaltation of one carried away by a great 
enthusiasm; "an opportunity furnished by Divine 
Providence to realize our most audacious national 
ideals" is his phrase. Moral considerations in 
favor of the action he supports appear only par- 
enthetically in his first memorandum; they dis- 
appear altogether in the second. His whole 
argument is that Greece will again be doubled in 
size, — quadruple what she was in 1912, — and the 
tone of the memoranda is that of a man who has 
been taken up into a high mountain and shown 
the world, and has chosen the world. 

The conclusion of a large Bulgarian loan in 
Berhn, however, cooled the ardor of the British 

19 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

to conciliate Bulgaria, albeit the fact dimmed 
nothing of Venizelos's purpose. It required a 
message from Sir Edward Grey that "there could 
be no question of a cession to Bulgaria for the 
present" to check Mr. Venizelos's political cam- 
paign in Greece to that end. 

TsTevertheless, the negotiations for Greece's par- 
ticipation in the expedition against Constantino- 
ple continued in a desultory way. Both King 
Constantine and his general staff favored the en- 
terprise, if undertaken upon serious military 
bases. The consideration being given the venture 
by the British war council struck them, however, 
as haphazard and based upon no real knowledge 
of the difficulties of the undertaking. The Greek 
staff had spent years in the study of every possible 
method of taking the Turkish capital, the dream 
of every Greek for five hundred years. A purely 
naval attack was, in their estimation, doomed to 
certain failure. When he learned that precisely 
this was under consideration, King Constantine 
sent two of his best staff officers to Malta with the 
Greek staff's own plans to demonstrate the folly 
of a purely naval movement and to propose sev- 
eral alternative operations, each dependent upon 

20 



GREECE IN THE FIRST HALF OF 1915 

the sending of a very considerable Allied land 
expedition to work in conjunction with the 
Greeks. 

Despite this warning, the first Allied bombard- 
ment of the straits took place on February 19, 
1915. Not only were no troops landed in support 
of the naval expedition, but the attack was made 
when no troops were available. The bombard- 
ment served no purpose save to apprise the Turks 
that the Entente was preparing to strike directly 
at Constantinople. It gave them plenty of 
leisure in which to complete an impregnable for- 
tification both of the Dardanelles and Gallipoli — 
a leisure which they employed immediately and 
well. This fruitless enterprise, projected by Mr. 
Winston Churchill in August, 1914, for which in 
five months no serious military preparations had 
been made, not only put the Turks on their guard, 
but betrayed to the Greeks the weakness and lack 
of plan in the Entente policy in the near East. 
It became at once evident to the Greek staff that 
if, upon joining the Entente, Greece were to 
protect herself effectually from disaster, she must 
do so by her own caution and intelligence. The 
Allies could not be counted upon to appreciate 

gl 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

the extent of their own blunders, much less not 
to sacrifice Greece to an ill-chosen and carelessly 
executed adventure. 

Following the failure of the naval bombard- 
ment of February 19, the Entente acquired re- 
spect for the Greek staff's suggestion of a simul- 
taneous land and naval expedition against the 
Dardanelles. Negotiations were reopened with 
Greece with this in view. On March 1, Mr. 
Venizelos proposed that Greece participate with 
her fleet and an army corps of three divisions, the 
Entente furnishing the remainder of the land 
force to be employed in the attack. During the 
discussion of the details of the enterprise the 
Greek staff, taught caution in dealing with the 
Entente by the naval fiasco of February 19, took 
the view that, with the Bulgarian attitude still 
undefined, Greece could not in conscience risk 
more than a division of her land army, albeit 
willing to add the entire Greek fleet to the En- 
tente's naval forces. This arrangement King 
Constantine accepted in principle on March 4, 
and Great Britain charged General Sir Arthur 
Paget to report upon the attitude of Bulgaria 
with a view to disposing of the Greek staff's hesi- 



GREECE IN THE FIRST HALF OF 1915 

tations on that head. The emissary was ill 
chosen. Sir Arthur Paget's predilection in favor 
of Bulgaria was well known in Greece. Not 
even Mr. Venizelos would have dared to act upon 
his judgment of Bulgaria's intentions. 

The question of the intervention of Greece in 
the war at this juncture, however, was decided 
upon other and entirely unexpected grounds. 
Russia at the eleventh hour opposed any Greek 
cooperation in an attack on Constantinople. The 
idea that a Greek king styled Constantine XII 
by his extreme partizans — taking the numeral in 
the line of the Greek emperors of Constantinople 
— should enter the "city of Constantine" a victor 
was too much for them. They insisted that if 
the help of the Greeks be accepted at all, it be 
used against the Austrians, not against the Turks. 

Unfortunately for this disposition, the Greeks, 
who had nursed five centuries of hatred of the 
Turks, had no rancor whatever against the Aus- 
trians, had never really come in contact with 
them, in fact. The Turkish massacres of Greek 
inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire, which had 
never ceased since 1913, inflamed the Greeks to 
the fighting-point; but a motive of this sort was 




CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

wholly lacking in any war with Austria. The 
proposal that the Greek army should be used on 
the Danube, where they had neither interests nor 
animosities, impressed them as did a similar sug- 
gestion that the Greek troops be employed for the 
defense of Egypt — as turning the Greek forces 
into an army of mercenaries to be moved about 
at the will of the more powerful Allied powers. 

It is difficult to exaggerate the unfortunate 
effect upon Greece of Russia's attitude, especially 
in view of the reasons for that attitude. The 
Greeks are a proud people, given to lending a 
somewhat too great importance to the role their 
history has played in the development of the mod- 
ern world. Their past is always with them, often 
to the detriment of their future; and to deprive 
them of any participation even in the Christian 
reconquest of Constantinople was too gross a 
wrong to be stomached. Only those wholly unac- 
quainted with the psychology and the traditions 
of the Greek of to-day could have formulated so 
wounding a condition to Greece's cooperation 
with the Allies. Negotiations for Greece's en- 
try into the war ceased at once. Prime Minister 
Venizelos, failing in his efforts to effect an alli- 



^ ImL Ip^Myj ^'iw wUo ^W ui^UMMmlUM 





AUTOGRAPH NOTES MADE BY MR CHRISTOPHER ZOGRAPHOS, MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF GREECE, 

during his discussion with King Constantine of the terms upon which Greece's offer of cooperation with 

the Allies of April 14, 1915, should be made. 

TRANSLATION: Act of 1/14 Ap/ii 1915 , ,, .■ • a t ^^ ,-„^ 

"Assurance of full solidarity witii her (Greece's) Allies; that is to say, their guarantee durmg the war and for a certain period toUowing 

its termination of the integrity of her (Greece's) continental integrity, including North Epirus. • ■ ■ u u c a • oonrrl 

"The various extents of our cooperation should be defined in a special convention, the terms of which should be ftxed in common accora 

by the respective leading states. , a <■ n ar.^ " 

"The final agreement should lay down the concessions and territorial compensations which may be made to ureece. 



GREECE IN THE FIRST HALF OF 1915 

ance between Greece and the Entente, resigned,— 
But before he resigned he permitted, under pa- 
per protest, an Allied occupation of the Greek ) 
islands of Lemnos, Imbros, and Tenedos, at the/ 
mouth of the Dardanelles, setting a precedent for 
future Alhed use of Greek soil for military pur- 
poses. On March 7, King Constantine dissolved 
the Boule,^ calling for new elections on June 13. 
As prime minister, in the interim, he sought first 
the cooperation of Alexander Zaimis, but finally 
accepted a reactionary cabinet under Demetrios 
Gounaris. On March 17, General Sir Arthur 
Paget reported Bulgaria safely on the side of the 
Entente and perhaps even ready to join them^ 
in an attack upon Turkey. The following day, 
March 18, the Allied attempt to force the Darda^ 
nelles, still solely by sea, was made with signal un- 
success. The Bouvet, Irresistible, and Ocean 
were sunk. A number of other ships were badly 
damaged. The moral effect on the Balkans was 
immediate and far-reaching. 

While negotiating with Greece for her entry 
into the war just preceding the Dardanelles at- 

iThe Boul6 is the Congress of the representatives of the 
Greek people. 

25 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

tack, Great Britain had simultaneously been ne- 
gotiating secretly with Bulgaria for her coopera- 
tion, offering King Ferdinand not only part of 
the territory of Great Britain's ally, Serbia, as 
compensation, but part of the territory of Greece 
as well. The failure of the Dardanelles attack 
put an end to this discussion. In the face of this 
setback the Russians withdrew their objection to 
the participation of the Greeks in an expedition 
/against Constantinople. The French and British 
^ returned to their negotiations with Greece, offer- 
ing the new Gounaris cabinet one last chance to 
come in. 

King Constantine had not wavered in his wil- 
lingness to undertake a serious military operation, 
and the occasion now seemed propitious to define 
precisely what the Greek staff, with its specialized 
knowledge of the difficulties to be met, regarded 
as a serious military operation. Three essential 
political conditions of cooperation were laid down 
in Foreign Minister Zographos's memorandum of 
April 14, 1915: (1) that Greece be accepted as 
a full ally of the Entente powers, the latter 
guaranteeing during the war and for a certain 
period afterward, the integrity of Greece's con- 

26 



GREECE IN THE FIRST HALF OF 1915 

tinental and insular territory, including north 
Epirus; (2) that the extent and natui^e of 
Greece's cooperation in the war be fixed by a 
special convention, the terms of which were to 
be laid down by the respective military staffs, 
in common accord; (3) that the final agreement 
for Greece's entry into the war define whatever 
concessions and territorial compensations it might 
please the Entente powers to make Greece for her 
assistance. 

The first condition was to dispose of any ques- 
tion of Great Britain's retaining the Greek islands 
she had occupied for the Dardanelles expedition, 
and to settle in advance any claims Italy might in 
future bring forward to north Epirus. The sec- 
ond proviso was to settle any possibility of the 
Greek army's being used in Egypt, on the 
Danube, or on the French front, dispositions of 
it to which the Greek people were unalterably op- 
posed. The third provision was not a demand for 
compensation, but merely the expression of a de- 
sire that whatever concessions were to be made be 
defined, not left to be fixed after the war. In this 
proposal from the Gounaris cabinet the military 
people of Greece were speaking, not the poli- 

27 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

ticians. They felt the necessity of being able to 
say to the Greek whom they called upon to fight : 
"You are fighting to free your brother Greeks 
in this given district of the Turkish Empire. 
When you have won, we have the guarantee of 
the Entente powers that those for whom you have 
fought shall be free." In making the proposals, 
the Gounaris government expressly renounced 
all expectation of the cooperation of Bulgaria. 

On their side, the Greek staff proposed to 
march 300,000 Greeks through Bulgaria, and in 
company with 250,000 European troops to attack 
Constantinople from the land. Bulgaria was to 
be summoned to define her attitude. If she de- 
clared hostility to the Entente, after all her ne- 
gotiations to join the Allied powers, the Greeks 
were quite ready to finish with Bulgaria first and 
come on to Constantinople later ; if, however, Bul- 
garia were to reiterate her professions of friend- 
ship to the Entente, she was to be asked to prove 
it by permitting the Greek army to pass through 
her territory. A memorandum embodying these 
points was submitted to the Entente by the Greek 
general staff on April 20. 

The Allies refused to consider this offer, re- 
^8 



GREECE IN THE FIRST HALF OF 1915 

garding the Greek estimate of the number of 
troops required for a successful attack upon Con- 
stantinople as greatly exaggerated. Six months 
later General Sarrail set the requisite minimum 
for an offensive against Bulgaria from Saloniki 
at virtually the same figures. The British, be- 
sides, believed firmly in the friendship of Bulgaria 
and opposed the Greek plan as calculated to pro- 
voke war with King Ferdinand. Every insist- 
ence of the Greek king that he had reason to be- 
lieve Bulgaria had been planning hostility to the 
Entente from the date of the floating of the Bul- 
garian loan in Berlin was met by the Allies not 
only with unbelief, but in a spirit of irritation 
with King Constantine for maligning his neigh- 
bor. 

As for the guarantee of the integrity of Greece 
during the war, the Entente was not disposed to 
furnish any other than the acceptance of Greece 
as an ally ; they refused to undertake any engage- 
ment for after the war. They ridiculed Greece's 
uneasiness as to the attitude of Bulgaria and 
proposed that the Greek army be sent into Asia 
Minor, leaving the Macedonian frontiers of 
Greece open to any attack the Bulgars might de- 

29 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

^ sire to make. Finally, they who had suggested 
compensations in Asia Minor to Venizelos, sud- 
denly found it unwise to plan the dismemberment 
of the Ottoman Empire. 

To the Greeks all these objections appeared 
mere chicane. Nevertheless, on the suggestion of 
Jean Guillemin, afterward French minister to 
Greece, a fortnight later the Greeks proposed a 
new combination, withdrawing their condition 
of a guarantee of the integrity of Greece for a 
period after the war, and offering their ports and 
islands to the Entente as military and naval bases 
and their fleet to cooperate with the Allied fleet 
against Turkey. The Greek army was to remain 
inactive as long as there was danger of a hostile 
move by Bulgaria. The Greeks renounced any 
idea of a land attack on Constantinople in view of 
the unwillingness or the inability of the Entente 
to furnish a force additional to the Greek army 
sufficient to give the enterprise a fighting chance 
of success. 

This second proposal, although made at the in- 
stance of France, was sharply rejected. Greece 
was given to understand that she must join the 
Allies entirely without conditions if she wished to 

30 



GREECE IN THE FIRST HALF OF 1915 

be accepted at all. The Allied landing at Gal- 
lipoli was counted upon to demonstrate the seri- 
ous intentions of the Entente. Greece, however, 
insisted upon the point of the guarantee of her in- 
tegrity. But the Entente, already in negotiations 
with Italy for her departure from neutrality, 
refused to discuss the integrity of Greece. After 
the Entente's signature of the secret agreement 
with Italy on April 25, 1915, what had been an 
impression in Athens became a conviction; 
namely, that the Entente was no longer able to 
guarantee the integrity of Greece, having already 
promised part of Greece (Epirus) to Italy and 
intending to offer another part (Cavalla) to Bul- 
garia to keep her from joining the Central em- 
pires. On May 1, the Greek Boule was dissolved. 
In May, also, Italy entered the war, thereby 
clinching any arrangement in respect to Epirus 
that may have been secretly made between her 
and her new allies. In these circumstances 
the Greek people lost all enthusiasm for join- 
ing the Entente. They conceived a very pro- 
found feeling that the Allied powers were not 
playing squarely. This sentiment was strength- 
ened by the action of the Enghsh in stopping and 

31 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

seizing Greek ships or holding them indefinitely 
at Gibraltar, Malta, or Cyprus on filmy or no ex- 
cuses, in seizing and condemning cargoes of wheat 
and coal necessary to the economic existence of 
Greece, in stopping or delaying telegrams from 
or to Greece, often occasioning heavy losses to 
Greek business men — all on the ground that hos- 
tile submarines were being supplied from Greece, 
an assertion the Entente authorities were never 
able to prove. 

To these repressions and irritations was added 
the patent unsuccess of the Allied land operations 
at the Dardanelles as further reason for Greece's 
waning desire to join the Entente powers. 
Jealous of concessions promised to Italy in Asia 
Minor at the same moment that the Greek Gov- 
ernment was being informed that the Entente 
could not see their way clear to the dismember- 
ment of the Ottoman Empire; suspicious of the 
sincerity of the Entente in all her negotiations 
with Greece; persuaded that Great Britain was 
still hoping to secure the aid of Bulgaria at 
Greece's expense; convinced by the facts of the 
Dardanelles adventure that the Entente in their 
operations in the East were blundering, through 



GREECE IN THE FIRST HALF OF 1915 

ignorance of conditions and incapacity to meet 
them effectively, the Greeks settled down without 
regret to the idea of staying out of the war. 

In June, convinced in the same sense as his sov- 
ereign of the insincerity of the Entente powers 
in their negotiations with the Gounaris cabinet, 
Foreign Minister Christopher Zographos re- 
signed. With his resignation any hope of reach- 
ing an agreement with the Gounaris government 
was eliminated. 



CHAPTER III 

THE SERBIAN TREATY 

The Greek elections, held on June 13, 1915, 
gave Elephtherios Venizelos 180 deputies out of 
316 in the Boule of the Hellenes. Despite shame- 
less efforts to control the balloting by force, the 
Conservative government of Demetrios Gounaris 
was overwhelmingly voted out. But not even 
Venizelos himself pretended that the vote in ques- 
tion had been a vote by Greece in favor of going 
to war on the side of the Entente. The greater 
part of the negotiations between Greece and the 
Entente representatives had been conducted, as 
is usual in the near East, without the details be- 
ing more than divined by the people at large. 
Venizelos had taken the Greeks into his confi- 
dence only to the extent of publishing his two 
memoranda to his sovereign, an action regarded 
by the Greeks generally as in doubtful taste. In 
addition, he had given the Entente governments, 
and to a certain extent the Greek people, to 

34 



THE SERBIAN TREATY 

understand that the failure of his negotiations to 
join Greece with the Allies had been due to the 
opposition of King Constantine and the general 
staff. 

At this period the Greeks were unquestion- 
ably passionately in favor of France in the 
European War. They also trusted Venizelos 
and respected his undoubted abilities. But they 
were by no means disposed to part with a portion 
of the territory they had won from Bulgaria at 
the point of the bayonet, even at the behest of 
Venizelos or to help France in her war with Ger- 
many. Moreover, the voters, almost all of whom 
had fought victoriously under the orders of the 
general staff, had confidence in the military judg- 
ment of their officers, and they considered the 
participation of Greece in the European War a 
military matter upon which General Dousmanis, 
the chief of staff, might be better qualified to 
pronounce than even Venizelos. For this reason 
Venizelos's censure of the general staff left the 
people cold. As King Constantine put it, "They 
elected Venizelos, not his policy." 

An exceedingly astute politician, Venizelos 
himself was as well aware of this general senti- 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PE^OPLE 

ment as anybody. He had, therefore, gone very 
lightly on the war part of his program during 
his electoral campaign, purposing to achieve his 
ends by more devious ways. Scarcely was his 
majority in the chamber known before the En- 
tente powers acted upon it — in Athens, it is as- 
sumed, at the instance of Mr. Venizelos. A note 
was addressed on August 3 to the Greek Gov- 
ernment by Great Britain, France, and Russia, 
advising Greece that the Entente, without ask- 
ing the permission either of Serbia or Greece, had 
entered into an engagement with Bulgaria to de- 
liver to her the Greek port of Cavalla and 
a territory lying behind the port, to be enlarged, 
according to the verbal statements of the Entente 
ministers in Athens, in proportion to any con- 
cessions which might be made later to Greece in 
Asia Minor. At the same time the Greek Gov- 
ernment was advised that a similar notice had 
been sent Serbia, the ally of the Entente, ac- 
quainting the Serbian Government with the En- 
tente's intended cession to Bulgaria of all 
Serbian Macedonia not in dispute, under the 
Serbo-Bulgarian treaty of 1912. This proposed 
grant of the territory of an ally to a hostile 

36 



THE SERBIAN TREATY 

neighbor thrust a Bulgarian wedge between 
Serbia and Greece, thus effectually nullifying the 
Greco- Serbian treaty of alliance, which had been 
conceived to keep the two countries in such close 
contact as to enable them to oppose a solid front 
to their common enemy, Bulgaria. 

To say that this cavalier disposition of 
the territory of an independent state pro- 
voked indignation in Greece would be to fail 
in describing the feeling the Entente's move 
aroused. The Greeks felt precisely as the Amer- 
icans did when the German foreign minister pro- 
posed aiding Mexico to reconquer Texas, New 
Mexico, and Arizona, save that in this instance 
the Entente did not promise to aid Bulgaria to 
take the territory in question : they ceded the ter- 
ritory to her as if it were their own. Not a man 
in Greece was ignorant of the role of undeclared 
ally that Bulgaria had played in respect to 
Turkey since the latter's entry into the Euro- 
pean conflict. Not a man was ignorant that 
every sacrifice short of actual armed cooperation 
had been made by Greece in favor of Serbia and 
her greater Allies since the war began, and that 
even armed cooperation had been offered and re- 

37 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

jected. No one was unaware of the heroic fight 
that Serbia had made, nor of her refusal to con- 
clude an advantageous separate peace with 
Austria just before the second Austrian invasion. 
Yet the two countries that had been faithful in 
sympathy and sacrifice to the cause of the En- 
tente, one an ally and the other an independent 
neutral state, were to be despoiled in favor of 
the one Balkan country that had shown herself 
consistently hostile to the Entente in deed and in 
intrigue from the outset of the war. The Greek 
Government formally protested. 

The Serbian Government, in no position to 
protest, remained silent. Already cooled toward 
her greater allies by their secret treaty of April 
25 with Italy, Serbia was slowly reaching the 
conviction, later to be emphasized by disaster 
after disaster which overtook her, that the En- 
tente powers were more or less indifferent to 
her fate. After the first Austrian invasion at 
the outbreak of the war, the Serbian general 
staff begged France and Great Britain to send a 
sufficient quantity of heavy artillery to Belgrade 
to keep the Austrians on the other side of the 
Danube. Three tiny naval missions were sent, 

38 



THE SERBIAN TREATY 

the British under, first, Admiral Troubridge and 
then Admiral Cardale, the French under Com- 
mander Picot, and the Russian under Lieutenant 
Volkovinsky. But unsupplied with either guns 
or sufficient ammunition, despite frantic appeals 
to Malta for the needed supplies, these inade- 
quate missions were able to be of little use. 
When the third invasion of Serbia began, they 
gave it up entirely as a bad job. 

The common Greco- Serbian frontier erected 
by Greece and Serbia at the conference of Buk- 
harest was as necessary to Serbia as to Greece. 
Her only communication with the sea was 
through the Greek port of Saloniki. An exten- 
sion of the Bulgarian frontiers toward the Var- 
dar threatened to cut Serbia off from every possi- 
bility of developing and consolidating her newly 
won territory. 

Venizelos naturally did not openly support the 
Entente's demands; but no more did he oppose 
them. Following the elections. Prime Minister 
Gounaris resigned, and King Constantine sum- 
moned Venizelos to the premiership. The Boule 
was first called for July 20, and then postponed 
until August 16, at the premier's desire. On as- 

39 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

suming power, Venizelos declared the situation no 
longer the same as during the previous January, 
when he had urged the juncture of Greece with 
the Entente powers, and, on the assembly of the 
Boule, he formally repeated his renunciation of 
his previous policy of alineing Greece with the 
Allied powers upon any conditions and at any 
cost. To appreciate the events which followed 
it is important to note this change of front on the 
part of the Cretan. For later, when King Con- 
stantine removed him from power for trying to 
compass Greece's departure from neutrality 
without a mandate from the Greek people to that 
effect, he declared his sovereign's act unconsti- J 
tutional on the ground that the Greek people had / 
pronounced upon a question of cooperation with > v/ 
the Entente in the elections of June 13. And his 1 
whole claim to any standing in Greece to-day \ 
rests on the assumption that he alone represents J 
the will of the Greek people constitutionally ex- 
pressed at that time. 

It is important, too, to note that at this mo- 
ment there was no voice raised in Greece — least 
of all that of Mr. Venizelos — to maintain that 
the Greco- Serbian treaty of alliance required 

4)0 ^ 



THE SERBIAN TREATY 

Greece to come to the armed aid of Serbia in a 
general European war. On the contrary, by of- 
fering additional inducements to Greece to join 
the Serbs at the time of the second Austrian in- 
vasion, the Entente powers had virtually ad- 
mitted that the Greco- Serbian treaty did not 
suffice to compel Greece to enter; besides, by 
promising to Bulgaria Serbian territory spe- 
cifically mentioned in the treaty as essential to 
the maintenance of effective military contact be- 
tween the two contracting countries, the Entente 
powers had not only ignored the treaty in ques- 
tion, but had undertaken to treat it as a scrap 
of paper of no importance or applicability to the 
existing situation. 

Between Serbia and Greece a long series of 
conversations as to the best method of applying 
the military provisions of the treaty, should it 
ever become operative, proved abortive. The 
document itself is in two parts, a treaty of de- 
fensive alliance against an attack upon either of 
the contracting parties by Bulgaria, and a mili- 
tary convention defining with meticulous ac- 
curacy the precise obligations of both parties in 
that event. On August 17, 1914, just before 

41 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Turkey's entry into the war, the Greek staff, 
under Mr. Venizelos's premiership, advised Serbia 
that if Turkey were to attack Greece alone, 
Greece would support the attack alone ; but that 
if, as seemed likely, Bulgaria were to declare war 
at the same time, Serbia must oppose Bulgaria 
with at least 100,000 bayonets (actual combat- 
ants) in order to prevent a Bulgarian concentra- 
tion against Greece. The requirements of the 
military convention are explicit: 

At the opening of hostilities at whatever moment they 
may begin, Serbia contracts to put 150,000 men in the 
Ghevgheli-Koumanovo and Pirot sectors.^ 

To this voluntary reduction of the number of 
troops Greece could expect of Serbia, the Serbian 
staff replied that Serbia could not take her forces 
from the Austrian frontier to send them to the 
Bulgarian border because of certain obligations 
she had contracted toward the Entente. Again, 
on April 3, 1915, the Greek staff sent Colonel 
Vlakhopoulos to Kraguyevatz to enter into a con- 
ference with the Serbian staff with a view to 
ascertaining just what the Serbs could do in the 
way of fulfilment of their side of the contract. 
The Voivode Putnik refused flatly to enter into 

i"Le Temps," Paris, August 15, 1915; No. 20,128. 

42 



THE SERBIAN TREATY 

any conversations on this head. On August 10 
the Serbian staff informed Colonel Vlakhopoulos 
that, far from being able to transport the treaty 
requirement of 150,000 bayonets to the Bul- 
garian frontier in the event of the then impending 
declaration of war by Bulgaria, the most that 
Greece could count upon in the future was two 
Serbian divisions, or fewer than 20,000 men. 

Evidently this situation was not the fault of 
Serbia; neither was it the fault of Greece. The 
plans had been made by both staffs in full knowl- 
edge of the military needs of a campaign against 
Bulgaria. It was not a sentimental problem, or 
even a political one ; it was a military emergency 
that arose by mid-August, 1915, when both 
Greece and Serbia became convinced of Bul- 
garia's hostile intentions. Serbia at once ap- 
proached her greater allies to supply the missing 
contingent of 100,000 bayonets, with which the 
Greek staff thought that a campaign might be 
undertaken. The Entente governments treated 
the idea of a Bulgarian attack with contempt, and 
refused to treat Serbia's plea seriously. The 
French minister to Serbia, M. Bopp, had 
preached the ultimate hostile action of Bulgaria 

43 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

to M. Delcasse for months. His only satisfac- 
tion was to be told that he was a Serbophile. 
The French minister in Sofia, M. Panafieu, tele- 
graphed his Government daily for a fortnight 
before Bulgaria's declaration of war that Bul- 
garia's hostility was inevitable. He received no 
reply from the Quai d'Orsay at all. 

On September 15 the Greek staff advised the 
Serbian staff, as well as the Entente ministers in 
Athens, that it was in the possession of informa- 
tion that sixteen Austrian and German divisions 
had passed through Budapest bound southward. 
They also told the Entente that October 14 was 
the date set for Bulgaria's declaration of war. 
The information was too precise to be wholly 
ignored. For the first time the scorn the En- 
tente had previously exhibited for the idea of 
a combined Austro-German-Bulgarian invasion 
of Serbia from two sides appeared to be shaken, 
albeit Great Britain clung to her assertion that 
Bulgaria would never move from neutrality. 
New pressure, however, was brought from Lon- 
don and Paris to bear upon Greece, and on Sep- 
tember 21 Venizelos promised the French and 
British ministers that Greece would mobilize. 



THE SERBIAN TREATY 

At the same time, on his own responsibility and 
without authorization from the sovereign of 
Greece or the Boule of the Hellenes, he asked 
France and Great Britain to send 150,000 Allied 
troops to Macedonia. The two governments re- 
plied that they were favorably disposed to con- 
sider the matter. 

On September 23 the Bulgarian mobilization 
was decreed, but officially stated to be "solely 
for defensive purposes." Four days later Sir 
Edward Grey formally declared in the House of 
Commons: "According to official information 
reaching us, Bulgaria has decided to assume here- 
after an attitude of armed neutrality to defend 
her rights and independence. Nevertheless she 
has no aggressive intentions against any of the 
neighbors of Bulgaria." 

On September 24, King Constantine signed a 
decree mobilizing the Greek army. He ordered 
it to take up the positions on the Bulgarian fron- 
tier indicated in the Greco- Serbian treaty of 
alliance, that it might be ready to act in case the 
situation altered in Serbia or in case France and 
Great Britain, at last alive to a possible Bul- 
garian attack the imminence of which the Greek 

45 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

king and the Serbian staff had long urged upon 
them, should decide to send a force to the aid of 
their hard-pressed ally. 

In decreeing the mobilization, however, King 
Constantine took the precaution to state that it 
was "for the defense of the national territory 
only," so as to prevent his prime minister from 
rushing Greece into war without sufficient con- 
sideration of its consequences to Greece and to 
Hellenism in general. Later, he embodied his 
idea in a declaration which he gave me for publi- 
cation : 

Greece is merely loosening her sword in the scabbard. 
She menaces no one. But she cannot permit that 
events shall constitute a menace to the integrity of the 
nation or to the freedom of the Greek people. It is 
my duty to preserve my country from the danger of 
destruction through becoming involved in the general 
European conflict. I shall do this at all hazards, if it 
be possible. 

At the request of the Central empires, the 
Greek Government at this juncture transmitted 
to Serbia a second offer of a separate peace. 
The Serbs wavered. Convinced of Bulgaria's in- 
tentions and in despair at the indifference of the 
Entente to their peril, they asked permission of 

46 



THE SERBIAN TREATY 

their Allies to fall upon Bulgaria before the lat- 
ter's mobilization could be completed. Great 
Britain refused to permit this. Faced with the 
certainty of an attack from two sides, knowing 
herself in no position to concentrate on the Bul- 
garian frontier the troops required to render the 
Greco- Serbian treaty operative and thus assure 
the assistance of the Greek army, a large party 
in Serbia openly advocated the acceptance of the 
proposal for a separate peace. 

Serbia's danger had failed to arouse the En- 
tente to any action in her behalf. The prospect 
of Serbia's defection, however, produced an im- 
mediate result in London and Paris. The Serbs 
were promised aid, and in consequence they re- 
fused the offer of a separate peace. General 
Sarrail's expeditionary force, which had been 
designated for operations in Syria on September 
3, was suddenly ordered to proceed to Saloniki 
instead on a day's notice. It was, however, as 
Sir Edward Grey frankly characterized it, "a 
comparatively small force." 

The preliminaries to this landing were charac- 
teristic of the methods of the Cretan statesman. 
Rumania was first asked to cooperate against 

47 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Bulgaria, and refused. Then, on October 2, 
after having completed all his arrangements with 
the Entente ministers in Athens for the sending 
of a nominal expeditionary force to Macedonia, 
Venizelos broached the matter to his sovereign. 
"If the Entente will supply the 150,000 bayonets 
required by the Greco- Serbian treaty to call the 
Greek army into operation, will King Constan- 
tine, as commander-in-chief of the Greek army, 
undertake to lead the army in a campaign against 
Bulgaria?" was his fashion of putting the ques- 
tion. The king demurred that he could not de- 
cide unless he knew what quahty of troops the 
Entente proposed to send. Venizelos promised 
that they should be "metropolitan," or line, 
troops, not colonials. The king objected that 
so important a military matter should be thor- 
oughly threshed out with the general staff before 
reaching any definite decision. His prime 
minister replied that time pressed, and urged 
immediate action. King Constantine main- 
tained, as he has always maintained, that the 
Greco -Serbian treaty was not in question, 
as it was conceived solely in reference to 
purely Balkan combinations and could not be 

48 




CONSTANTINE I 
King of the Hellenes 



THE SERBIAN TREATY 

operative in the case of a general European war. 
However, disposed in every practical way to be 
of aid to the Serbs, he declared his willingness to 
consider any combination based upon the essen- 
tial military requirements of such a campaign as 
laid down in the Greco-Serbian treaty. It was 
not the form that interested him, but the material 
result. 

On this assurance, and on the definite under- 
standing that the Entente force to be sent was to 
total 150,000 men, or at least 100,000 bayonets, 
Venizelos left the king's presence at Tatoy and 
went at once to the French and British lega- 
tions. 

"The king consents," he informed the two di- 
plomatists. "Let the troops come!" 

Later in the evening King Constantine tele- 
phoned his prime minister to repair, to Tatoy the 
following morning to discuss the details of the 
proposed arrangement with the officers of the 
Greek staff. 

"It is too late, Sire," answered Venizelos. 
"The French are already on the way." 

Article XCIX of the Greek Constitution 
reads : 

51 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

"No foreign army can be admitted to the 
Greek service without a special law, nor can it 
sojourn or pass through the state." 



52 



CHAPTER IV 

THE SALONIKI ADVENTURE 

The Allied expeditionary force, ordered to 
Saloniki on October 2, 1915, began debarkment 
October 5. The whirlwind Austro- German at- 
tack upon Serbia under General von Mackensen 
began October 6. The whole story is a heroic 
eddy at one side of the great, boiling caldron 
of the European War. The Serbs fought des- 
perately, but they had no chance from the very 
outset. The French advance into Serbia, begun 
October 14, and the retreat upon Saloniki ending 
just two months later, was an operation in the 
nature of the "Charge of the Light Brigade" — 
magnificent, but not war. It is impossible to 
praise too highly the gallant conduct of the FrencR 
troops under incredibly difficult conditions. The 
position of General de Lardemelle's force, es- 
pecially, occupying the extreme left beyond the 
Tscherna ^ River in an effort to effect a juncture 

1 Also spelled improperly Cerna. 

53 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

with the Serbs at the northern end of Babounas 
Pass, was never seriously tenable for a moment. 
Yet he held it for ten days, waiting, as the entire 
expeditionary force was waiting, for the rein- 
forcements that were sent to Saloniki only in De- 
cember, after it was too late — and then in too 
small a nmnber to be of any use. 

If the expedition was political (and only the 
chancelleries of London and Paris know what 
they had in mind in ordering the expedition) , cal- 
culated to induce the Greeks to enter the war, it 
was both childish and dishonest; dishonest be- 
cause it assumed that the Greeks would be led by 
sentiment to throw themselves into the war at the 
first appearance of Allied troops on Greek soil, 
and that, once precipitated thus into the hostili- 
ties, they would be compelled to fight it through 
even to the destruction of Greece, without further 
help from the Entente powers. The proof that 
France and Great Britain would have sent no 
adequate reinforcements to the Greeks, had the 
latter embarked upon the hazardous adventure as 
the Allies hoped, lies in the fact that they sent 
no adequate reinforcements to their own troops, 
who were caught like rats in a trap. The enter- 
s' 



THE SALONIKI ADVENTURE 

prise, if undertaken with the hope of persuading 
the Greeks to go to war, was childish because it 
assumed that the Greek staff would not know an 
expeditionary force of serious proportions from a 
handful of armed men — the Greeks who, in the 
present generation and before the outbreak of 
the European War, had seen more real war than 
France and Great Britain combined. 

It is almost impossible to conceive of the adven- 
ture as having been seriously undertaken as a mil- 
itary emprise. If so, however, it is perhaps the 
greatest single folly of the war, not excluding the 
Dardanelles affair. For the Saloniki adventure 
involved the possibility of a far worse disaster to 
the Allied arms than that of Gallipoli. General 
Sarrail's troops were saved from destruction 
when they retired upon Saloniki only by the 
purely fortuitous circumstance of the presence of 
friendly Greek troops on both his flanks — a cir- 
cumstance upon which, as the capable soldier he 
is, he could not properly count. Had the Greeks 
retired before the Bulgarian advance in Decem- 
ber, 1915, as they did in May, 1916, no power on 
earth could have saved General Sarrail from de- 
feat; had the Greek staff and the Greek king 

65 



'V 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

actually favored the Germans, as both Mr. 
Venizelos and the Entente press insist with such 
vehemence is the case, a combined Greco-Bul- 
garian attack upon Sarrail's retreating army 
would have meant its capture or its complete 
annihilation. It was these mad risks that the 
expedition ran. 

There were greater military and moral issues 
involved in the adventure than the fate of an 
Allied army of less than 60,000 men. The whole 
prestige of the Entente in the Balkans was at 
stake. Serbia had been promised help. She did 
not get it. Serbia and Montenegro were crushed, 
because the promised help was not brought in 
time, or, indeed, ever. It is of no avail in the 
Balkans, and I doubt if it is of much avail any- 
where else — save perhaps in the Entente coun- 
tries themselves — to seek to blame the issue on 
the Greeks. This is not the war of the Greeks; 
it is the war of the Entente, and the Entente 
powers had no business to stake the very life of 
two of their allies on a mere gamble. More- 
over, it was not even a gamble when regarded 
from a cold-blooded military point of view. The 
Entente powers would themselves have been the 

56 



THE SALONIKI ADVENTURE 

first to despise and criticize the Greeks had they 
entered the war under heavy handicap and in 
consequence been destroyed by the armies of the 
Central empires, precisely as to-day they despise 
and criticize Rumania for the same reason. 

The Entente were perfectly aware of the po- 
sition of the Greek staff in regard to entering 
hostilities without forces and equipment adequate 
to victory. This position had been made clear 
in November, 1914, and in January, March, 
and April, 1915, during previous negotiations 
between the Entente and Greece, for the latter's 
participation in the war. Colonel Sir Thomas 
Cunningham, the British miUtary attache in 
Athens, was in closest touch with the Greek staff 
and had advised his government fully as to its 
disposition to remain unmoved by considerations 
of sentiment or politics and to govern the conduct 
of the Greek army by rule of sheer military prob- 
abilities. The haphazard manner of planning 
and pursuing the Dardanelles adventure merely 
strengthened the Greek staff in its conviction 
that the Entente were both badly informed in 
respect to conditions in the near East and in- 
clined to take the military problems of the Bal- 

57 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

kans far too lightly. Before this concrete 
example of incapacity had been thrust under 
their noses, it is possible King Constantine and 
the Greek staff might have inclined to credit Ven- 
izelos's claim that the Entente were prepared 
to send 150,000 metropolitan troops to Saloniki; 
after the Gallipoli failure became evident, how- 
ever, they preferred to count the French and 
English troops as they arrived, and to move 
only when a reasonable number of properly 
trained men were on the ground. On this basis, 
the forces furnished by the Entente gave them 
no occasion to move at all. 

Finally, the Entente knew better than any one 
that their hopes of Greek aid were founded on 
a politician, not a soldier; yet they required mili- 
tary, not political aid. They knew Venizelos to 
be their man; his political fortunes in Greece 
were bound up with their policy, which he had 
made his. It was evident, therefore, that for the 
Entente to reach an understanding with Veni- 
zelos for the aid of Greece was about as effective 
to the end of securing for the Allied powers the 
cooperation of King Constantine's army, as for 
the Entente to reach an understanding with Sir 

58 



THE SALONIKI ADVENTURE 

Edward Grey for the aid of Greece. Venizelos 
no more controlled the Greek army than did the 
British foreign minister. The negotiations of 
the Entente with Greece for her participation in 
the war at this juncture were in no sense a 
frank discussion on a military basis between two 
parties who expect thereafter to work together in 
the close association of alliance ; they were simply 
a diplomatic and political intrigue, powerless, 
even if successful, to obtain any real advantage 
either for Serbia or for the Entente. 

The loss to the Entente in the failure of the 
effort to rescue Serbia is not measurable in pres- 
tige alone. It was a loss of men far in excess 
of the comparatively small casualties suffered by 
General Sarrail's army, for it meant the virtual 
annihilation of the Serbian and Montenegrin 
armies. Serbia had begun the war with some 
300,000 trained and experienced soldiers whose 
hardihood and staying powers were second to 
those of no soldiers engaged in the entire Euro- 
pean conflict. To-day 7i5,000 is a generous 
estimate of the Serbian army. Montenegro be- 
gan the war with twelve brigades of infantry 
and a brigade of artillery, a very considerable 

59 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

force for so small a country. To-day no Monte- 
negrin army remains. 

In Athens, the news of an Allied expedition 
to Saloniki precipitated an acute political crisis. 
Venizelos played his last card as premier. On 
October 5 he appeared in the Boule with the pur- 
pose of using his majority to jam through the 
resolution constitutionally required to legalize the 
landing of a foreign force on Greek soil; for at 
that moment, having as prime minister of Greece 
invited a foreign army to debark in Greece with- 
out the permission of the deputies, he had violated 
the Constitution and stood entirely without the 
law. He had acted as a dictator and he felt the 
need to regularize his position at once. But the 
representatives of the Greek people did not prove 
as tractable as he had anticipated. The powers' 
note of August 3, giving Cavalla to Bulgaria, 
had had its effect, and there was a marked oppo- 
sition for the first time to Greece's leaving neu- 
trality on any terms. The session of the Boule 
lasted until five o'clock in the morning. In the 
course of the debate Venizelos was forced to make 
admissions that put him in the light of having 
completely altered his ground since his election; 

60 



THE SALONIKI ADVENTURE 

on the subject of the Greco-Serbian treaty he had 
to renounce the position he had taken in October 
and November, 1914, that the aUiance did not 
require Greece to participate in a general Euro- 
pean struggle. He was compelled to go back on 
his earher statement that conditions had altered 
since January, 1915, and that the recent elections 
had not recorded the decision of the people in 
favor of war, and to take the contradictory stand 
that the vote in the elections of June 13 had 
been a vote for war — a stand which nothing in 
fact justified. In fine, he was shown by his own 
admissions to have been intriguing with the rep- 
resentatives of the Entente powers while the 
sovereign and the people of Greece had been 
kept in ignorance of what he was about. As a 
crowning revelation of his policy, he asserted 
from the tribune of the chamber that he believed 
Greece must join the Entente, not only to fight 
Bulgaria or Turkey if necessary, but to fight 
Austria and Germany as well, should occasion 
require. He pronounced this course imperative 
because of Greece's obligation to Serbia created 
by the treaty of May 19, 1913 — an obhgation 
which he now declared binding whether the En- 

61 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

tente sent a sufficient force to be of real value in 
the Macedonian operations or not, and binding 
even to the destruction of Greece. 

With the majority of his most devoted fol- 
lowers behind him, Venizelos weathered the storm 
in the chamber, but only in the face of bitter op- 
position which scarcely augured such unity of 
enthusiastic purpose as would be required if war 
were to be waged. The extreme interpretation 
which he put upon the Serbian treaty was a new 
one, upon which the Greek people certainly had 
never been called to pass. If their sentiment in 
respect to war with Bulgaria was clear, certainly 
they had never pronounced upon war against 
Austria and Germany. Indeed, since the En- 
tente's note of August 3, there had been reason 
to believe that the people of Greece would have 
liked to pronounce much more definitely than 
hitherto they had had opportunity of doing upon 
the entire foreign policy of the country. 

On the following day, therefore, October 5, 
King Constantine called his first minister to the 
palace. The interview was a stormy one. The 
monarch felt that the prime minister's course had 
been one of intrigue at the expense both of the 

62 



THE SALONIKI ADVENTURE 

Greek people and of his l5wn position as head of 
the army. Excessively frank himself, the Greek 
sovereign despises the devious ways of politicians. 
He voiced his feeling on this occasion, and his 
hand is not light in dealing with what he can- 
not approve. He asked the Cretan if the reports 
of his declarations in the previous evening's 
debate were correct. Venizelos reviewed for the 
benefit of his sovereign the position he had taken 
in the Boule. 

"I can no longer cooperate with you along 
those lines," the king said dryly, when his min- 
ister had finished. "I shall accept your resigna- 
tion. The people of Greece will decide whether 
you are authorized to plunge them into war or 
not." 

Venizelos saw the place in the sun he had 
worked and schemed for since the beginning of 
the European War suddenly obscured. He 
claimed that, as he had been reelected in June 
after his resignation in March, the throne had 
not the constitutional right to send him back to 
the people for a second vote, whatever may have 
been the alteration of the external as well as the 
internal situation of Greece in the interim. He 

63 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

has maintained that position ever since, making 
the foundation of his revolutionary movement 
against the present King of the Hellenes the 
claim that the Greek sovereign violated the Con- 
stitution under which, according to the Cretan, 
Constantine I is merely the "highest functionary" 
of a democratic state. Article XXXI of the 
Greek Constitution reads, however: "The king 
appoints and dismisses his ministers." There is 
no qualifying clause whatever. 

In this connection a statement which Venizelos 
gave me for publication the morning of October 
4 is interesting, albeit somewhat confusing when 
compared with the facts. He received his sum- 
mons to repair to the palace while I talked with 
him; at that time, so far as he knew, the bold 
stroke he had attempted in inviting the French 
and British to land troops in Macedonia was in a 
way to succeed. The significant detail, however, 
is that I submitted the statement to him for his 
approval after he had left the king, when he 
knew that his interpretation of the Greco-Serbian 
treaty had not met the views of the Greek sov- 
ereign, and that the matter would, in consequence, 
be referred to the people of Greece for their 

64 



THE SALONIKI ADVENTURE 

judgment. He knew, too, that he was then no 
longer premier, and that whatever declaration he 
might give out could only serve to embarrass the 
incoming premier and, in the eyes of the public 
abroad, bind the new government to a policy 
which was yet to be pronounced upon by the 
people. Yet, far from altering the statement in 
these circumstances, he countersigned it him- 
self, so that it might pass the censor. He said in 
part : 

One thing is absolutely certain: Greece will abide 
by the terms of her alliance with Serbia not only in the 
letter but in the spirit, to the last man and the last 
drachma. More, the Greco-Serbian treaty foresaw 
only the possibility of a Balkan war. When it was 
made no one could predict the present European con- 
flict with all its widespread complications. But the 
spirit of the alliance was one of mutual defense, and be- 
cause the dangers threatening our ally have increased 
with unforeseen conditions, there is no excuse for hiding 
behind the verbiage of the treaty to escape the respon- 
sibilities of our pledge. 

Though the entire available forces of the Central 
Empires be added to those of the Bulgarians in an 
attempt to crush Serbia, Greece will unflinchingly re- 
main true to her passed word. . . . 

Nor has there ever been at bottom the slightest 
wavering among the Greek people respecting the terms 
of the alliance, although every desperate effort has been 
made to becloud the issue. . . . 

Respecting the landing of the French troops at 

65 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Saloniki, there is but one thing to be said: we have 
protested, of course, for we wished to remain neutral 
in the European struggle, and we wish it now, if it were 
consistent with our rights and duties. But the Greek 
people cannot declare war on France, and would not 
if they could. 

What France has done for Greece no Greek can 
forget. There comes now France asking nothing of 
Greece, declaring categorically her sole intention to be 
to support Greece's ally in the case of a need wherein 
Greece herself would be bound to support her neighbor. 
It is something offered, not something asked. Indeed, 
since I have been premier I may say quite frankly that 
the Entente have not asked one concession of Greece. 

The last assertion is astonishing in view of the 
Entente's long negotiations with Greece, con- 
ducted through Venizelos as prime minister, for 
the cession of Cavalla to Bulgaria — negotiations 
frankly admitted by the British Government in 
the House of Commons. There appears to be a 
certain inconsistency also between the insistence 
upon Greece's "passed word" and the admission 
that "the Greco-Serbian treaty foresaw only the 
possibility of a Balkan war" — precisely King 
Constantine's own interpretation of that docu- 
ment. 

Moreover, what the Cretan statesman says 
about wishing to remain neutral "even now" is 
extraordinary in the light of Mr. Asquith's state- 

66 



THE SALONIKI ADVENTURE 

ment to the House of Commons on November 3, 
1915: "on September 21," the British prime min- 
ister declared, "after the Bulgarian mobilization 
had begun. Premier Venizelos asked France and 
Great Britain for 150,000 men on the express 
understanding that Greece would mobilize also." 

When Venizelos gave me the statenient which 
I have just quoted, he said, speaking of the 
king's action in dismissing him as prime minister, 
"The Constitution of Greece has ceased to 
exist." 

Later I had occasion to question King Con- 
stantine on this head.. "The only violations of 
the Constitution that I know anything about," 
he said, "were those committed by Venizelos: 
first, when he authorized foreign troops to land 
on Greek soil without the consent of the Greek 
chamber; and, second, when he tried to exercise 
the power of declaring war which, by Article 
XXXII of the Constitution, is vested solely in 
the crown." 



67 



CHAPTER V 

SERBIA ABANDONED 

General Sarrail arrived in Saloniki in a bad 
temper. The complete change of plan from the 
Syrian expedition which he had been assigned to 
command, and which promised well, to this wild- 
goose chase in Macedonia, filled him with mis- 
givings. He sensed a political intrigue in 
France at the bottom of the whole expedition, 
and had a premonition that he was to be made 
the scapegoat of a failure. Distinctly active in 
French politics, a partizan and political protelge 
of Caillaux, General Sarrail felt that he had rea- 
son to fear he was being sent to Saloniki to get 
him out of France, and that he would be left in 
Macedonia, without sufficient support, to bear the 
blame of an unsuccessful campaign. A personal 
and a political enemy of General de Castelnau, 
then the leading influence in the French army, 
Maurice Sarrail knew that he had no mercy to 

68 



SERBIA ABANDONED 

expect at the hands of the French staff if he made 
a misstep. 

Whatever else he may be, Sarrail is a first-rate 
soldier. He landed in Saloniki October 12, just 
a week after the first French contingent had dis- 
embarked. One glance at conditions in Mace- 
donia filled him with gloom. Everything was to 
be done — organization, sanitation, port arrange- 
ments, policing, transport, road building, housing 
for an army and its commissary, and the dis- 
charge and storage of war material and supplies. 
The country furnished nothing, not even the 
beasts of burden and wagons essential to moving 
the impedimenta of an army. 

I had a long talk with him in his personal 
quarters in the French school shortly after his 
arrival. The room was bare of carpet ; one small 
table held maps over whose inaccuracies Sarrail 
swore roundly; in one corner was a narrow bed, 
in another, a wooden box containing the com- 
mander's kit. There was one chair, which I was 
constrained to take; Sarrail sat on the bed; 
Colonel Jacquemot, his chief of staff, on the box. 
He asked me many questions about the dispo- 
sition of the Greeks to join the expedition into 

69 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Serbia. I told him frankly that they would be 
likely to do so only if convinced that a really 
strong Allied force would be sent to support them. 

"What about King Constantine?" he asked. 
"Is he Boche or is n't he?" 

"No more than you or I," I told him. "But 
he 's a soldier, and he knows this country up here. 
He 's taking no chances that you would n't con- 
sider good yourself." 

He made me a statement, publication of which 
he authorized : 

It would be of no use to pretend that the task of 
the Allied armies in the Balkans at this moment is not 
a difficult one, but it is in no wise insurmountable. 
The present lack of transportation, the bad condition 
of the roads, in which men and horses easily get stuck 
in the mud; a single-line railway, exposed in many 
places to attacks by the enemy without great risk to 
himself — all of these things combine to make our un- 
dertaking most difficult. There is, therefore, nothing 
to be gained in attempting serious action before we 
have finished our preparations with all the care that 
conditions require. The result will prove whether we 
were right or not to undertake this business. 

As for Greeks, the people have given us a generous 
and friendly welcome. I have only admiration for the 
Greek soldiers. The officers especially seem to me to 
be first-class. If the Greeks decide that their own in- 
terests behoove them to join the Allies, they cannot 
fail to be of great value to our common cause. 

70 



SERBIA ABANDONED 

General Sarrail made no concealment of his 
anxiety as to the number of troops he was to be 
given. Yet he began his operations two days 
after his arrival, starting a mixed detachment 
under Colonel Ruef up the railway line into 
Serbia. From this moment until the Austrians 
and Germans completed the conquest of Serbia, 
November 25, Sarrail never had more than 
35,000 men. The British, who were not under 
Sarr ail's command at that time, were a confusion 
of miscellaneous, uncoordinated troops, the relics 
of regiments, battalions, brigades, and divisions 
decimated by the Turks on Gallipoli and not yet 
reformed into any cohesive force. A part of the 
Tenth Division and what was left of the Irish 
Brigade were of some use ; the rest might as well 
have been in England. Moreover, they had no 
orders to move from Saloniki and remained there 
inactive while Sarrail stretched his line far be- 
yond the point of safety in an effort to occupy 
strategical positions as far into Serbia as pos- 
sible, trusting that he might receive reinforce- 
ments later to fill in the great gaps he was leav- 
ing in his line. 

General Mahon, the British commander, tried 
71 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

repeatedly to provoke instructions from Eng- 
land. He received none. Finally, on his own 
responsibility, on October 26, he undertook to 
release the French forces guarding the Belaschitz, 
a plateau in the Dedeli-Causli-Doiran region. 
General de Lardemelle was at Kafardar, his line 
pushed beyond the Rajhdehcke River in the di- 
rection of Babunas Pass ; General Leblois was at 
Negotine, his line stretching to Gradsko and the 
mountain of Kara Hodzali, in the direction of 
Veles; General Bailloud occupied Strumnitza 
station, guarding the single railway line of com- 
munications with Saloniki and threatening a 
descent into the valley of the Strumnitza River 
in Bulgarian territory whenever a sufficient force 
should arrive; to the east the British kept the 
passes and prevented a sudden flank attack upon 
Saloniki from the north. 

It was all tentative, all dependent on the ar- 
rival of more troops. Already the Serbs were in 
full retreat from the Danube, and no Allied re- 
inforcements were in sight. It was heartbreak- 
ing business. Not only General Sarrail, but 
every French soldier realized the perilous game 
the Allies were playing with their overtaxed 

72 



SERBIA ABANDONED 

line. Officers and men were "jumpy." The 
French were irritated at the British inaction, and 
the British themselves were in despair over the 
weird scrap-bag conglomeration of which their 
forces consisted. 

The Greeks, mobilized for war, looked on and 
made unfavorable estimates of the Allied forces. 
Had they wavered about joining the EfUtente 
armies, what they saw in Saloniki would have de- 
cided them against the venture. Munitions were 
lacking, discipline was bad, organization, espe- 
cially among the British units, was pitiful. Bad 
camp sites were chosen and had to be altered. 
The equipment was suited for the deserts of Gal- 
lipoli, not the mountains of Macedonia. The 
transport horses were huge animals that never in 
the world could negotiate the steep mountain 
paths of Serbia ; there was heavy artillery that no 
bridge in Serbia or Bulgaria would stand up 
under, and no mountain artillery at all; there 
were immense motor drays that would scarcely 
pass through the narrow streets of Saloniki, 
much less along the primeval Macedonian roads. 
The men were clothed for the heat of the Dar- 
danelles, not the penetrating cold of Macedonia ; 

73 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

they were paid in French or British money, both 
at a loss of exchange in neutral Greece, and the 
Jews who comprise the local population of Sa- 
loniki accepted these uncurrent coins at a dis- 
count that carried with it a superficial but un- 
fortunate impression of impaired Allied credit. 
The intelligence service was recruited among the 
riff-raff of the refugees from Thrace and Asia 
Minor — Armenians, Levantines, islanders of un- 
certain citizenship and dubious honesty. The 
army purchasing was recklessly extravagant. 
The frugal Greeks were appalled by the waste, 
the confusion, the lack of intelligent preparation. 
On the other hand the mere sight of the Greeks 
inactive while the French were fighting enraged 
the latter. The dirt and disorder of Saloniki, so 
recently a Turkish city, filled both the French 
and the British with disgust. The strange cos- 
tumes of the local population gave an impres- 
sion of lack of civilization, and the French and 
British promptly treated and spoke of the Greeks 
as "natives." Moreover, the Greeks, resentful 
of the presence of a foreign army on their soil, 
were far from helpful. The Jewish tradesmen 
found the opportunity golden to put up their 

74 



SERBIA ABANDONED 

prices. The Greek soldiers, on mere route 
marches, filled the roads where the Allies wanted 
to move troops that were going to do battle. . 
The railroad service in civilian hands was inade- 
quate for efficient military transport. The 
Greek customs officers made endless difficulties 
about the landing of supplies ; the port authorities 
gave preference to Greek merchant vessels while 
Allied troop ships hung about the harbor, wait- 
ing to dock. The telegraph service was wretched, 
the Greek censorship infinitely annoying. 

The Allies were also at a language disadvan- 
tage. Greek-Enghsh and Greek-French inter- 
preters were rare, high-priced, and untrust- 
worthy. An officer who sent his orderly to buy 
a stamp might wait half a day for it — the man 
secure in the excuse that he could not make him- 
self understood. Worst of all, the presence of 
Germans, Austrians, and Turks among them 
was unbearable to many, especially the French. 
They, at war with the Germans, meeting Ger- 
mans in streets and cafes, crushed against them 
in street-cars, hearing their hated accents, catch- 
ing their hostile glances I Two newspapers in 
French, but subsidized by the Austrian consu- 

77 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

late, made the French see red with their daily 
reports of Allied defeats, created out of whole 
cloth. There was the consciousness, too, that 
they were constantly watched by the spies of 
their enemies, their movements reported, their 
numbers and equipment catalogued. Had they 
felt their organization effective, it would have 
mattered less. But to know that they were cut- 
ting a poor figure in the eyes, not only of the 
Greeks, but of their enemies, was humiliating. 
They resented it keenly; they resented all the 
impediments to their work and the hostility to 
their presence. Most of all, they resented hav- 
ing been sent on a wild-goose chase, and the 
failure of the expedition. They resented feeling 
that the despised Greeks could probably have 
done the job better, and that the Greeks knew 
it. Then there was fear, also, — that mistrust 
which is the inevitable concomitant of all war. 
"Who is not with me, is against me." The 
Greeks were not with them. Might they not be 
against them? And the Greek forces in Mace- 
donia outnumbered the Allied armies five to one. 
All of this irritation, this resentment, this fear, 
found its reflection in the rapidly shaping En- 

78 



SERBIA ABANDONED 

tente policy in Athens. To the Venizelos cabinet, 
purely a party and personal ministry entirely 
under the thumb of the Cretan, succeeded, on 
October 7, a national ministry, headed by Former 
Premier Alexander Zaimis, director of the Na- 
tional Bank of Greece, an able, patriotic, tried 
administrator, friendly to the Entente and — un- 
like Venizelos — not a politician, having no ambi- 
tions to satisfy, no political organization to main- 
tain at the expense of the public treasury. With 
the exception of the ministers of war and marine, 
who were respectively a general and an admiral, 
the cabinet was made up of former prime minis- 
ters — reactionaries all, save Zaimis, but men of 
high purpose and unimpeachable integrity. The 
Boule continued its sessions, Venizelos conserv- 
ing his majority and, according to his phrase, 
"tolerating" the new cabinet, 

The Zaimis government's first act was to re- 
new the declaration of "benevolent neutrality" 
with which Venizelos had defined the position of 
Greece toward the Entente in August, 1914. 
The second was to issue a lengthy statement of 
the Government's position on the Greco-Serbian 
treaty of alHance. There were three general 

79 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

lines of argument: that the alliance was exclu- 
sively Balkan in scope and could not be justly 
interpreted to force Greece into a general Euro- 
pean war ; that Serbia had assumed other sub- 
sequent engagements with the Entente that 
placed her in the impossibility of fulfilling her 
part of the joint military agreement, thus releas- 
ing the Greeks from the performance of their 
part; and, finally, that a nation, no more than a 
person, can legally contract to its own destruc- 
tion, and that the inability of the Serbs and the 
failure of the Allies to concentrate along the 
Bulgaro- Serbian frontiers the number of troops 
which had been judged by both the Serbian and 
the Greek staffs, in the cold judgment of peace, 
to be essential to a successful campaign, rendered 
the venture near enough certain to destruction 
for the Greeks to release them from any obliga- 
tion. 

On the first point, Venizelos's own declaration 
to me that "the Greco-Serbian treaty foresaw 
only the possibility of a Balkan war," appears to 
be final. Since giving me that statement, how- 
ever, he has made me another very recently, in 
which, to justify his present criticism of King 

80 



SERBIA ABANDONED 

Constantine's attitude, he reviewed the negotia- 
tions for the Greco- Serbian treaty and sought to 
prove to me that his statement of October 5, 1915, 
was not true, by asserting that Serbia delayed 
the ratification of the treaty until Greece was 
forced to concede that it might extend beyond the 
Balkans in its scope, and alleging at the same 
time that King Constantine was present at the 
discussion of this point and himself personally 
accepted the Serbian proviso. It is difficult to 
reconcile this last statement, made evidently in 
support of a position for which a defense is neces- 
sary, with the former one, as well as with Venize- 
los's own attitude in respect to the alliance when 
prime minister in October and November, 1914. 
Moreover, in May, 1914, before the European 
War, Greece had sounded Serbia as to the appli- 
cability of the treaty of alliance should Greece 
go to war with Turkey over the islands remain- 
ing in dispute between the two countries. On 
June 1, 1914, the Greek representative in Bel- 
grade was advised "riot to push things too far," 
as Serbia was not disposed to extend the alliance 
to cover such a contingency. Prince Nicholas 
of Greece, also, who had quite as much to do with 

81 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

framing the treaty as did Venizelos, tells me posi- 
tively that only a war with Bulgaria was con- 
templated by its provisions, and cites the minute 
military dispositions made in the tactical annex as 
proof of this assertion. And, indeed, the fact 
that Serbia did not insist upon the fulfilment of 
the terms of alliance from the very outbreak of 
the war would seem to indicate that this was the 
accepted view of the treaty until Venizelos, for 
reasons connected with politics within Greece, 
chose to give the document another interpreta- 
tion. 

On the second point the case seems clearer. 
Granting the Entente claim that Greece was 
bound to aid her ally by the treaty of alliance, 
she was bound only under definite conditions laid 
down in the document itself; to wit, that Serbia 
furnish 150,000 bayonets concentrated at spe- 
cified points. Since Serbia could not do this 
directly, it is necessary to admit that she might be 
permitted to do it by proxy; that is, to supply 
Entente bayonets to replace her own. This 
view the Entente powers themselves accepted, 
Sir Edward Grey stating in the House of Com- 
mons on November 3, 1915, that "a definite num- 

82 



SERBIA ABANDONED 

ber of men would be sent to Saloniki for the ex- 
press purpose of enabling Greece to fulfil her 
treaty obligations with Serbia." The definite 
number of men required by the treaty was never 
sent. Greece, therefore, seems fully released of 
her obligations, even according to Sir Edward 
Grey. 

As to the third point, no man who was in 
Saloniki and Serbia with the Allied expedition- 
ary force could for a moment harbor any illu- 
sions as to the possibility of a successful outcome 
to the adventure. Not even 150,000 bayonets, 
equipped as were the forces the French and Eng- 
lish sent to Saloniki, would have served to stem 
the tide of Germans, Austrians, and Bulgarians. 
Greece, neutral, was saved from invasion; 
Greece, a belligerent, would unquestionably have 
been crushed as readily as was Serbia — and it is 
difficult to see what useful purpose would have 
been served the Entente, Serbia, or Greece her- 
self by such an eventualitj^ 

It was easy for any one attending the sessions 
of the Boule during this period to see that Veni- 
zelos's "toleration" of the Zaimis cabinet was a 
mere political manoeuver. It could not last, and 

83 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

it endured less than a month. Free to express 
himself without responsibility, Venizelos spent 
his time consolidating his majority and exhibit- 
ing a truculence toward his opponents that was 
bound to end in the overthrow of the ministry. 
In a last desperate effort to persuade the Greeks 
to take the brunt of the work in Macedonia, the 
Entente offered Greece the island of Cypress as 
a compensation, hinting at further concessions 
to be made after the war. General Yannakitsas, 
the minister of war, voiced the opinion of the 
King and the general staff in stating that "com- 
pensations" could not compensate for military 
weakness ; that alluring offers would not take the 
place of the soldiers necessary to a successful 
campaign in Serbia. King Constantine himself 
said: "The whole world will not persuade me to 
offer up my country as a sacrifice on the altar of 
the Entente's military unpreparedness." 

The line between considering the Balkan situa- 
tion as a political or as a military question was 
sharply drawn in the Boule on November 4. 
Venizelos, sponsor of the former view, returned 
personally to the charge, speaking of the obliga- 
tions of Greece toward Serbia and the benefits to 




Photograph by the Author. 

KING PETER OF SERBIA AT AEDYPSOS 
"Sitting on a bench in the warm sun" 



SERBIA ABANDONED 

be gained by joining the Entente, making a com- 
bined appeal to the sentimentality and the 
cupidity of his countrymen. General Yannakit- 
sas took his stand sharply as a practical soldier — 
that all of this was beside the main point of 
whether the campaign could be won or not with 
the forces available ; and he thought not. There 
was a sharp "incident" in the chamber. Veni- 
zelos triumphed on purely party lines, though the 
vote of 147 to 114 showed a marked decrease in 
his original majority. Zaimis resigned. The 
fate of Serbia, could the aid of Greece have saved 
her, was sealed. 

Months later, sitting on a bench in the warm 
sun, looking out over Mt. Olympus, snow- 
crowned. King Peter of Serbia told me what it 
meant to the waiting Serbs — this whole Saloniki 
muddle of intrigue, mismanagement, and need- 
less disaster. 

The old man's head sank on his breast, as he 
talked. His eyes closed wearily. It was as if 
his soul had left the bent, worn, pain-racked 
body and had flown over the far mountains to his 
own people. 

"If only they had come a little sooner, our al- 
87 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

lies!" he said. "I used to tell my men: 'Hold 
on! Just a little longer! They have said they 
will come, and they will come!' And they be- 
lieved me and held on. 

"You know we could n't even see the Germans ! 
It was all artillery — machine-made war! My 
men used to grind their teeth, and the tears would 
run down their poor, thin faces, and they would 
say: 'If only we could just get at them! We 
would show them!' 

"And then, as I rode by their lines, I could see 
them shaking their heads and nodding at me and 
whispering among themselves. 'Poor old King!' 
they were saying, 'he still believes the Allies will 
come in time to save us !' " 



88 



CHAPTER VI 

THE FIRST BLOCKADE 

Stephen Skouloudis succeeded Zaimis as 
premier. He was regarded as a capable man, 
satisfactory to the Entente. Mr. H. Charles 
Woods, writing in the "Fortnightly Review" of 
September, 1916, refers to him as "a very far- 
seeing man, who, if he were opposed to the in- 
tervention of Greece in the war, was in favor of 
neutrality, not to further the interests of Ger- 
many, but in order to safeguard those of his own 
country." He repeated Greece's assurances of 
a policy of "benevolent neutrality" and set about 
seeking a definition of the position of Greece in 
relation to the Entente powers on that basis. 
Such a definition appeared essential to both 
sides. On November 3, in a debate in Parlia- 
ment, Lord Charles Beresford declared: "Un- 
til the Government has a clear and definite policy 
in the near East, the war will continue and Eng- 

89 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

land will lose thousands of lives and waste mil- 
lions [pounds, not dollars] of money." 

The German conquest of Serbia was rapidly 
drawing to a close. The Serbian army, com- 
pletely disorganized by the attack from two sides, 
was seeking escape through Albania to the 
Adriatic coast. The work of the Bulgarians 
against Serbia was virtually finished, and they 
turned their attention to the hopelessly inade- 
quate French force extended into Serbia along 
the railway line as far as Gradsko, at the junc- 
tion of the Vardar and the Tscherna rivers. A 
retirement of the French expeditionary corps was 
evidently a mere question of days, since the Bul- 
gars greatly outnumbered the newcomers and 
were already effecting a concentration of troops 
for serious attack. 

Under these circumstances the Entente gov- 
ernments grew suddenly uneasy for the safety 
of their expeditionary force. 'No thought seems 
to have been given what might happen in case 
the French were compelled to retreat into Greek 
territory. Venizelos, who had induced the 
French and British to come to Saloniki, was no 
longer premier and could not be depended upon 

90 



THE FIRST BLOCKADE 

to bend or break the Greek Constitution to meet 
any requirements of the Allied military com- 
manders. The Greeks had shown very plainly 
that they did not like the presence of strange 
troops on their soil ; and the Greeks had a large 
force concentrated in Saloniki and its vicinity, of 
whose temper the Allies were uncertain. 

No attempt was made to reach a frank under- 
standing with the Greek king or the Greek gen- 
eral staff. No effort was made to handle a mili- 
tary situation in a military way, through an ar- 
rangement with the competent military authori- 
ties of Greece. King Constantine's suggestion 
that the military requirements of the retiring 
army be fixed in joint consultation by representa- 
tives of the Greek and Allied staffs was rejected. 
Such a practical solution of the problem, by be- 
ing unofficial, would have saved Greece friction 
with the Central empires. The Entente would 
not have it. Instead, the Entente ministers in 
Athens put a hypothetical question to the 
Skouloudis cabinet: Should the French force 
then in Serbia be driven back upon Greek soil by 
the Bulgarians, what would be the attitude of 
the Greek Government? 

91 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

According to international law, an armed force 
compelled by an enemy to seek refuge in the ter- 
ritory of a neutral country must be disarmed and 
interned precisely as the British naval reserves 
vi^ho fled from Antwerp were disarmed and in- 
terned by Holland. Prime Minister Skouloudis 
so replied. International law, however, has 
played so small a part in defining the attitude of 
the Entente toward Greece that Mr. Skouloudis's 
answer, albeit theoretically correct, may be re- 
garded as of doubtful wisdom. If the Entente 
desired to suspend international law, certainly 
Greece, dependent entirely upon the Ally-con- 
trolled sea for bread, was in no position to in- 
voke international law to shape her action. Her 
best course would probably have been to close 
her eyes to the violation of international law and 
try to manage the Central empires as best she 
could. 

It is difficult to see, however, how a theoretical 
declaration of this sort could really be taken 
seriously in London and Paris. The spectacle 
of 35,000 French troops returning from Serbia 
being disarmed and interned by the Greek army 
in Saloniki when an Allied fleet that could have 

92 



THE FIRST BLOCKADE 

destroyed the Greek army and the entire city as 
well in a few hours' bombardment lay within 
rifle shot of the quays of the Macedonian capital, 
is fantastic. The Greeks themselves certainly 
did not take it seriously, and they regarded this 
real or feigned uneasiness over the security 
of the Allied army as a mere pretext to try to 
force the Entente's man, Venizelos, back into 
power. 

Whatever purpose was to be served by a dis- 
play of panic over the safety of their forces, the 
method employed by the Entente to compel a 
grant of large powers in Greek Macedonia was 
drastic and immediate. On November 17, the 
French Government ordered the port authorities 
of Marseilles to pass no further merchandise 
destined to Greece. On November 18, Great 
Britain issued an order that no Greek vessel 
should be allowed to proceed to its destination. 
The ship bearing to Saloniki the English Prin- 
cess AHce of Battenberg, the wife of King Con- 
stantine's brother, Prince Andrew, was stopped 
and held on the high seas. The price of coal at 
water level in the Piraeus ran up to $40 per ton 
in a few days. Greece was totally unprepared 

93 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

for a blockade of this sort, and its effect was felt 
instantly. 

On November 19, the British legation issued a 
communique explaining the action of the Allied 
powers : 

Because of the attitude of the Hellenic Government 
in regard to certain questions touching closely the 
security and liberty of action to which the Allied troops 
have right under the conditions of their disembarking 
on Greek territory, the Allied Powers have deemed it 
necessary to take certain measures which will have the 
effect of suspending the economic and commercial facili- 
ties which Greece has received from them heretofore. 

It is not the intention of the Allied Powers to con- 
strain Greece to abandon her neutrality which, in their 
eyes, is the best guarantee of her interests. 

Just what rights the disembarkment of the 
Allied troops on Greek soil, in violation of Arti- 
cle XCIX of the Greek Constitution and in the 
face of a formal protest of the Greek Govern- 
ment, had given the Entente powers in Greece, 
were not made clear. Nor were the economic 
and commercial facilities Greece had hitherto re- 
ceived from the Entente particularized; for 
some time they had seemed to consist chiefly of 
having vessels bound to Greek ports delayed for 
weeks on end at Gibraltar or Malta and their 

94 



i 



THE FIRST BLOCKADE 

cargoes frequently confiscated. The paragraph 
about not constraining Greece to abandon her 
neutrality struck most Greeks as highly ironical; 
they felt that it was at bottom precisely to se- 
cure the aid of Greece in their war that co- 
ercive measures were being applied by the En- 
tente. 

No demands were made, however, of the Greek 
Government until a week after the blockade went 
into practical effect, v Meanwhile, to clear the 
situation up once for all. Cabinet Minister Denys 
Cochin for France and Lord Kitchener for Eng- 
land visited both Athens and Saloniki. M. 
Denys Cochin, whose friendship for Greece had 
endeared him to every Greek, was well fitted by 
that fact to conduct the diplomatic negotiations 
which the situation rendered imperative; Lord 
Kitchener, as the first (and the last) representa- 
tive of the Allies to look upon the Entente's rela- 
tions in the near East with a purely military eye, 
was distinctly indicated to pronounce upon the 
necessities of the situation arising from the 
perilous position in which the failure of the 
Serbian adventure had placed the Allied army 
in Macedonia, as well as upon the continuance 

95 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

of a venture which, so far, had proved not only 
profitless but costly in loss of prestige. 

M. Denys Cochin's talk with King Constan- 
tine on November 18 was satisfactory in every 
way. The Greek monarch gave his personal 
word that under no circumstances, whatever the 
fate of the Allied expedition in Macedonia, would 
the Greek troops ever attack the Allies. As 
commander-in-chief of the Greek army, he was 
in a position to carry out the assurance. At the 
same time he displayed a willingness to aid the 
Entente in every practical way short of joining 
them. The retreat of the French forces from 
Serbia was plainly imminent. King Constan- 
tine offered to cover the flanks of the retiring 
army with his Greek troops against any attempt 
to cut it off from its base. In general, the scope 
of the Allied military operations in Macedonia 
was defined in a way entirely satisfactory to the 
French. The Greek sovereign made it clear to 
the French cabinet minister that his own posi- 
tion was one of sympathy and friendliness for the 
Entente; but that in his estimation the interests 
of Greece made it imperative that she remain 
neutral at least for the present. M. Denys 

96 



THE FIRST BLOCKADE 

Cochin left for Saloniki the following day to con- 
vey the results of his conference with King Con- 
stantine to General Sarrail. 

While M. Denys Cochin was in Saloniki re- 
porting to General Sarrail, Lord Kitchener ar- 
rived in Athens. He had visited Saloniki pre- 
viously and had conferred with General Sarrail 
on the situation. He knew better than any one 
the precarious position of the Allied armies in 
Macedonia. He had been witness of the futility 
of the expedition as it had been undertaken and 
of the failure in which it had resulted. Better 
equipped than any man to judge of the military 
situation of the Entente in the near East, Lord 
Kitchener talked with King Constantine as 
soldier to soldier. 

They understood one another perfectly and 
were in accord at once. The British war minis- 
ter explained that he had never approved the 
Serbian adventure and that it had been only at 
the insistence of the French that it was under- 
taken.^ He declared that in his opinion the war 

1 Cf. M. Painleve's report of the findings of the committees 
of the French Chamber on war, the navy, and foreign affairs, 
of August 13, 1915: "In view of the fact that all delays and all 
setbacks increase the danger, and that the issue of the war is 
bound up with the taking of Constantinople, we recommend the 

97 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

would be decided in France, not in Bulgaria, and 
that effort spent on minor fronts, like that of 
Macedonia, was bootless waste. Every state- 
ment he made confirmed the wisdom of King 
Constantine in having kept clear of the Serbian 
hazard. Lord Kitchener's attitude toward the 
expedition fostered in the Greek sovereign the 
hope that once the failure of the attempt to 
rescue Serbia had been registered, the Allied 
war council would decide to abandon the Balkan 
enterprise and withdraw their armies from 
Greece. This hope was strengthened by the fact 
that the very day before Lord Kitchener's visit, 
General Sir Charles G. Monro had declared 
that the Gallipoli campaign ought to be aban- 
doned. 

King Constantine felt, after his talk with the 
British war minister, that he had every reason 
to believe that the haphazard operations of the 
Entente in the near East would be given up, and 
that Greece would be left tranquil again. It was 
in a spirit of deep satisfaction over this prospect 
that he told Lord Kitchener that the military 

government to take such urgent measures as the circumstances 
require and to organize an expedition that will ensure the fall of 
Constantinople." 

98 



THE FIRST BLOCKADE 

authorities of Greece had never for a moment 
considered anything so fantastic as interning the 
AUied forces ; he assured the British general that 
his only purpose in maintaining his troops in 
Macedonia was not hostility to the Entente, but 
the legitimate requirements of national safety, 
especially in the event that the Allied armies 
should abandon their Macedonia front and leave 
Greek Macedonia at the mercy of a victorious 
Bulgarian army, already in the field. He added, 
however, that the moment the Allied forces 
operating in Macedonia assumed proportions 
sufficient to guarantee a serious prosecution of 
the Balkan campaign, thus rendering Greece's 
own defense of Greek Macedonia superfluous, he 
would not refuse to consider a demobilization of 
his army, or at least a withdrawal of the Greek 
troops from Saloniki, if their presence there were 
regarded as embarrassing the movements of the 
Allied forces. He pointed out at the same time, 
however, that the Greek army, as circumstances 
were, constituted the most potent safeguard of the 
French and British at Saloniki, since the Greek 
army remained out of the war only so long as the 
Bulgarians did not invade Greece. Should the 

99 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Entente's enemies essay to pursue into Greek ter- 
ritory the Allied armies falling back upon 
Saloniki, they were well aware that the act would 
force Greece into war on the side of the Entente 
— a result they were far from desiring. To de- 
mand the demobilization of the Greek army, 
King Constantine told the British war minister, 
would be equivalent to inviting the forces of the 
Central empires to invade Greece, to pursue and 
to seek to hem in and, if possible, to cut off Gen- 
eral Sarrail. For this reason, he urged that the 
Greek army should remain where it was. 

Finally, King Constantine repeated to Lord 
Kitchener the assurance he had given M. Denys 
Cochin that under no circumstances would the 
Greek' forces attack the Allied Orient armies. 
Lord Kitchener accepted it and believed it. He 
told Admiral Cardale, of the British naval mis- 
sion, that he found King Constantine a straight- 
forward, fair-minded soldier, well-disposed to- 
ward the Allies, and with a very clear conception 
of the military situation in the near East. When 
Lord Kitchener left Athens, matters seemed to 
be amicably arranged. 

On November 24, M. Denys Cochin returned 
100 



THE FIRST BLOCKADE , 

from Saloniki with new and much further reach- 
ing demands from General Sarrail. On the day 
following his arrival, the Entente ministers in 
Athens presented a formal joint memorandum 
to the Skouloudis government requiring written 
assurances confirming those verbal assurances 
King Constantine had given Lord Kitchener and 
M. Denys Cochin, and generally looking "to the 
use of Greek territory as a base of field opera- 
tions." On the next day, in a new note, the par- 
tial demobilization of the Greek army was de- 
manded, as well as the retirement of the bulk of 
the Greek force from Saloniki and the right of 
the Allies to police Greek waters in search of 
enemy submarines. To insure the Greek accept- 
ance of these exigencies, the "commercial and 
economic blockade" of Greece was stiffened. No 
contact between Greece and the outer world was 
permitted. 

The demands were, of course, contrary in every 
way to the spirit of King Constantine's talk with 
Lord Kitchener. Far from presaging an early 
withdrawal of the Allied forces from Greece, the 
demands suggested rather a permanent Entente 
occupation of Saloniki, at least for the duration 

101 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

of the war/ The king's purpose of defending 
his own territory with his own army was brushed 
aside as of no consequence. No assurance of any 
kind was given as to what would become of Greek 
Macedonia in case of the defeat of the AlHed 
armies and no arrangement made or suggested by 
which King Constantine could secure the protec- 
tion of his own territory which his armies had 
won from the Bulgarians so short a time before. 

Under the strangling coercion of the blockade, 
the Skouloudis cabinet accepted the demands 
"in principle," proposing certain modifications 
with a view to permitting the Greek authorities 
at least to share in the execution of the Entente 
demands and in the administration of so large a 
part of Greece's own affairs. This was not satis- 
factory to the Entente. The blockade was con- 
tinued and, ignoring the Greek suggestion of ad- 
ministrative cooperation, General Sarrail con- 
strued this "acceptance in principle" to authorize 
him to seize the Greek railways and he did so. 

The French retreat from Serbia was drawing 

1 On December 14, Captain Mathieu, Sarrail's confidential staff 
officer, put the matter squarely: "You may take this as final," 
he declared to a number of correspondents, "the Allies will not 
quit Saloniki until the European peace has been signed." 

102 



THE FIRST BLOCKADE 

to a close. On December 3, the Bulgarians oc- 
cupied Monastir. It was no longer possible to 
conceal from any one the extent of the Allied 
disaster in Serbia. The Serbs were crushed, al- 
most annihilated; the French were beaten back 
upon their base, though a masterly retreat saved 
the army. The British in the Doiran sector lost 
several batteries of heavy guns. The Allied 
prestige in the Balkans was gone. Even the 
French and English soldiers were aware of the 
futility of the whole enterprise and its costly con- 
clusion. In Saloniki, no less than in London and 
Paris, the question was asked repeatedly, Who 
is to blame? 

General Sarrail refused to shoulder the re- 
sponsibility. He had done all he could with the 
troops he had been given, under grueling condi- 
tions of transport and commissary. Naturally, 
the governments in France and England did not 
care to take the odium of the failure. The Serbs 
could scarcely be blamed, considering all that 
they had suffered — though there was a marked 
tendency in London and Paris to hold them re- 
sponsible for their own defeat. The only people 
upon whom the full responsibility could safely be 

103 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

placed was the Greeks. Naturally not Veni- 
zelos, as Venizelos had tried to swing the Greek 
army into hne with the Entente, and it was hoped 
that he might yet be able to do it. It was, there- 
fore, to King Constantine that the entire muddle 
was attributed in the Entente press and even 
among the Allied soldiers on Greek soil. King 
Constantine's wife is the sister of the German 
Kaiser. Therefore King Constantine must be 
pro-German and must have betrayed the Allied 
armies in Serbia to the Germans. 

It is one of the sad aspects of war that other- 
wise intelligent people come under its sinister 
influence to accept reasoning so puerile. King 
Constantine's father was a Dane, who loved the 
French and hated the Germans cordially. His 
mother is a Russian, who is now in Petrograd. 
His three brothers have married French, Rus- 
sian, and English princesses, respectively. He 
is cousin of King George of England and of 
Nicholas Alexandrovitch of Russia. Primarily, 
he is a soldier, and the influence of any of his gen- 
erals is more than that of Queen Sophie, whose 
life in Athens is sadly isolated. Those who are 
in a position to know these things, like the British 

104 



THE FIRST BLOCKADE 

minister or the Italian minister to Greece, keep 
their own counsel. A popular legend is 
launched, with no foundation save an effort to 
shield those who have been guilty of a blunder 
from its consequences. It grows; it comes to 
create inevitable misunderstandings, to guide the 
policy of nations, to motive the most unworthy 
politics. 

One small thing, however, repeated on every 
occasion, has done much to strain relations be- 
tween King Constantine and the Entente, His 
word has been considered of no value. There 
has been a reiterated effort to entrap him into a 
given position by devious means. When, on 
March 1, 1915, he was willing to join the Allied 
expedition against Turkey, Russia's eleventh- 
hour objection to Greek forces before Constan- 
tinople and her proposal that the Greeks be used 
on the Danube, was hardly playing the game. 
When, on April 14, 1915, Foreign Minister Zo- 
graphos offered Greece's cooperation with the 
Entente, on terms which were afterwards slightly 
modified and improved from the Entente point of 
view, the Allied governments attempted to as- 
sume that by modifying the conditions of his 

105 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

cooperation, King Constantine had abrogated 
them entirely, and to force him to join the En- 
tente unconditionally. When, on October 2, 
1915, the Entente promised to send 150,000 
bayonets to Serbia to secure the active aid of the 
Greeks, they really sent less than a third that 
number, most of whom arrived too late to be of 
use. Finally, when King Constantine had 
frankly talked the situation over with Lord 
Kitchener, giving the British soldier assurances 
which were found satisfactory and agreeing on a 
course of amicable action on both sides, within a 
week of the British war minister's departure de- 
mands in flat contradiction of this arrangement 
were presented diplomatically, and their ac- 
ceptance forced by a blockade of Greece. 

Slowly the conviction was borne in upon King 
Constantine that the Entente were never sincere 
in their negotiations with him; that they had as- 
sumed among themselves obligations in respect 
to the integrity of Greece which made it impos- 
sible to treat with them frankly. 



106 



CHAPTER VII 

CONSTANTINE I TAKES A STAND 

The 1915 blockade of Greece was at its acutest 
when I came from Saloniki to Athens to see King 
Constantine. The situation between Greece and 
the Entente had become so compHcated and con- 
fused that it seemed necessary to a clear under- 
standing of it to go to the fountain head for 
enlightenment. I went, therefore, first to Gen- 
eral Sarrail and then to King Constantine and 
Premier Skouloudis. 

At this moment — early in December, 1915 — 
the attitude of Elephtherios Venizelos was puz- 
zling. Following his dismissal as prime minis- 
ter on October 5, he had made certain public 
declarations which, as the situation developed, 
proved to be misleading. He stated, first, that 
Greece wished to remain neutral in the European 
War. Yet subsequent official statements made 
in the British House of Commons revealed that 

107 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Mr. Venizelos had been working secretly to en- 
trap his king and the Greek general staff in a 
situation which would force them to join the En- 
tente, whatever the disadvantages of such a 
course. In his public utterances and in his 
formal protest against the Allied landing at 
Saloniki, he implied that the disembarkment had 
been made on the Entente's sole responsibility, 
contrary to the volition of the Government of 
which Mr. Venizelos himself was the responsible 
head. Yet on November 3 the Russian Govern- 
ment issued an official communique to the effect 
that "the Allies have been invited by Greece to 
send troops through her territory to help her 
ally." Finally, he had maintained that King 
Constantine had violated the Greek Constitution 
in disagreeing "twice on the same question" with 
a government chosen by the people. Neverthe- 
less, in the Boule on November 3, he said, "I 
admit that the Crown has a right to disagree with 
a responsible government if he thinks that the 
latter is not in accord with the national will." 
Yet when elections were called to ascertain 
whether the people of Greece did or did not ac- 
cord with his policy of thrusting Greece into the 
. 108 



CONSTANTINE I TAKES A STAND 

war, he refused to take part in the elections or to 
permit any member of his party to take part in 
them. 

After dismissing his prime minister on October 
5, King Constantine stated that if, in the elections 
of December 21, which were to be held on the 
naked question of war or peace, the people were 
once more to select Venizelos and his party to 
conduct the affairs of Greece, he, the sovereign, 
would gladly accept the judgment of his people 
on a clearly formulated point, would call Veni- 
zelos to power again and stifle his objections to 
going to war under conditions which he firmly 
believed most hazardous. Of this the Greek 
monarch apprised Mr. Venizelos himself. De- 
spite this assurance, Venizelos remained unmoved 
in his decision not to tempt a popular verdict on 
his policy. He gave as his reason for this atti- 
tude that he feared the elections would not be 
fairly conducted; but as he had claimed (with 
reason) that on June 13 they had not been fairly 
conducted either, and yet he had carried the 
country by a large majority, his position in this 
instance must seem open to doubt. 

The opponents of Venizelos believed the Cre- 
109 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

tan's attitude dictated by very astute political 
motives. They claimed that he avoided seeking 
the judgment of the electorate on the question of 
war or peace since, as long as the people had not 
pronounced unequivocally on that point, he could 
continue to assert that they favored war, because 
they had elected his party to office on June 13, 
when no plain question of war or peace was be- 
fore them/ Venizelos's opponents also main- 
tained that in a choice between war and peace the 
Greek people would choose peace. They eagerly 
invited an expression of popular will on that 
head. There is reason to believe that those who 
took this view were correct, and that Venizelos 
himself was better aware of it than any one else. 
Certainly my own observation led me to the con- 
clusion that, while the sympathy of the Greeks 
with the Entente at this period was still very 
marked despite the intrigues with Bulgaria that 
had come to light, it was a purely theoretical sym- 
pathy which did not extend to risking for the 
third time in four years the trials and hardships 
of war. I am convinced, too, that the real 
strength of King Constantine lay and still lies in 

1 In this connection compare Italian opinion on the Greek senti- 
ment about going to war. Appendix 5. 

110 



CONSTANTINE I TAKES A STAND 

the fact that he voices more nearly than any one 
else in Greece the real feeling of the Greek peo- 
ple, and that, as this feeling is not one in favor 
of war, what is King Constantine's strength is 
Venizelos's weakness. 

It is for this reason that the declarations King 
Constantine made through me on December 4 are 
of such far-reaching significance. It is not alone 
that he talked with great earnestness, thumping 
the table soundly with his clenched fist to em- 
phasize his conclusions. A man may be earnest 
and mistaken. What was most impressive was 
the coolness of his judgment, the almost detached 
point of view from which he regarded the situa- 
tion. He was evidently profoundly convinced of 
the accuracy of his statement of the feelings of 
the Greek people; but convinced, not by enthu- 
siasm, as is always the case with Venizelos, but by 
intellectual persuasion. Once in the course of 
the hour's talk he broke away from the subject 
uppermost in his mind to interject: 

"I dare say you think I am pretty cold-blooded. 
Well, in this I am cold-blooded. War is a cold- 
blooded business. I know what war is, and the 
man who in war lets sentiment run away with 

111 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

his clear judgment is lost. The same is true even 
of nations. Our situation is exceedingly diffi- 
cult. We are between two fires. If we want 
to save ourselves, we have got to be cold- 
blooded." 

"I am especially glad," King Const antine be- 
gan the conversation, "to talk for America, for 
America will understand Greece's position. We 
are both neutrals together and determined, if it 
is humanly possible, not to court destruction by 
permitting ourselves to be drawn into the fright- 
ful vortex of the present European conflict. 
We are both trying by every honorable means 
to guard our own sovereignty, to protect our own 
people, and to stand up for our own national in- 
terests without sacrificing that neutrality which 
we recognize as our only salvation. America is 
more protected from immediate danger by the 
distance which separates her from the field of 
battle. We, too, thought that once ; but the bat- 
tle-field shifted and may shift again, and what is 
happening in Greece to-day may happen in 
America or Holland or any other neutral country 
to-morrow, if the precedent now sought to be 
established in the case of Greece once be fixed. 

lis 



CONSTANTINE I TAKES A STAND 

"The fundamental cause of the entire threaten- 
ing attitude of the Entente toward Greece to- 
day and the painful situation of my country, is 
the Entente's own assumption, without the 
slightest reason for it, that Greece is ready to 
betray the Entente to Germany at the first favor- 
able opportunity. Is it reasonable to suppose 
such a thing? Three separate times, when condi- 
tions have been advantageous, Greece has ex- 
pressed her willingness to join forces with the 
Entente. From the very outset of hostilities in 
the near East, Greece's neutrality has been 
stretched to the utmost to accommodate the pow- 
ers of the Entente, for whom she has always felt 
the keenest sympathy and the deepest gratitude. 
The Dardanelles operations were directed from 
Greek islands occupied by Allied troops. When 
Serbia was endangered by a combined Austro- 
German and Bulgarian attack. Allied troops 
landed without opposition on Greek soil, whence 
with the second city of Greece as a base, they 
prosecuted not only unmolested, but aided in 
every way consistent with any sort of neutrality, 
the fruitless and long-delayed campaign to 
rescue their ally. Finally, I myself have given 

113 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

my personal word that Greek troops will never 
be used to attack the French and British forces 
in Macedonia, merely in order to allay unjusti- 
fied suspicions. Yet, despite all these evidences 
of good faith on the part of Greece, the Entente 
now demands, in a form which is virtually an 
ultimatum, that the Greek troops be withdrawn 
from Saloniki, — and that means from all Mace- 
donia, — leaving our population unprotected 
against the raids of Bulgarian comitadjis or 
against all the horrors of war which have already 
laid Belgium a waste, should the Allies be driven 
back within our frontiers. Just suppose the 
Germans were in a position to demand of your 
country to concede the use of Boston as the 
base of an attack on Canada — what would 
you say? And if all your military experience 
and the advice of your general staff told you that 
such a landing was doomed to failure because 
made with inadequate force, and you realized that 
British troops in Canada would pursue the re- 
treating Germans across New England, destroy- 
ing as they went, would you accept the prospect 
without a struggle?" 

"But has not your Majesty the German as- 
114 



CONSTANTINE I TAKES A STAND 

surance that the integrity of Greek territory will 
be respected?" I ventured. 

"Of course, and the Entente's assurance, too I" 
"And similar assurances from Bulgaria?" I 
asked. 

"Germany has given assurances for herself and 
her allies. But that does not prevent Germano- 
Bulgarian armies, as a measure of military neces- 
sity, pursuing the retiring French and British 
into Greece, fighting in Greece, and turning 
Greece into a second Poland. I have that as- 
surance also. That the Greek frontiers be re- 
erected after the war does not rebuild our towns 
or compensate my people for months — perhaps 
years — spent in living in misery as fugitives from 
their own land, when their country, which is not 
at war, has nothing to gain by risking devasta- 
tion. Why, the Entente treats me as if I were 
the nigger king of a central African tribe to 
whom the sufferings of my own people were a 
matter of indifference! I have been through 
three wars and I know what war is and I don't 
want any more if it can be honorably avoided. 
My people don't want any more, either, and if 
they and I can help it, we shall not have any 

115 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

more." The Greek sovereign smote the desk 
with his fist to drive in each sentence. 

To clear up the confusion of the poHtical situa- 
tion in Greece, I put a question squarely to the 
monarch. 

"Then your Majesty does not believe that 
Venizelos's intervention policy really expressed 
the will of the Greek people?" 

"I know it did not. When the people 
reelected Venizelos they elected him, not his 
policy ; the great mass of the people of Greece did 
not and do not yet understand anything about 
Venizelos's foreign policy. They like him and 
they elected him, but it would be the maddest 
folly to assume that, because they voted for a 
man personally popular, they therefore voted 
to throw the country into the whirlpool of a 
European war. They did no such thing. War 
is the last thing they want; ask them, and they 
will tell you so. It is said that I have exceeded 
the Constitution. What I have done is simply to 
apply the Constitution. The Constitution gives 
me the power to dissolve the chamber in order to 
prevent just such disasters as the following of 
Venizelos's policy would have proved at this 

116 



CONSTANTINE I TAKES A STAND 

juncture. My duty under the Constitution was 
to exercise that power. I did exercise it and I 
shall continue to exercise it as long as it is neces- 
sary to save my people from destruction. 

"Another thing I want to make clear : it is said 
that Venizelos, with my assent, invited the Allied 
troops to come to Saloniki. Nothing could be 
more untrue. Venizelos may have expressed his 
personal opinion that if the Allied troops landed 
in Saloniki, Greece would not resist — ^how could 
she resist? But that Venizelos ever, as the re- 
sponsible head of the Greek Government, for- 
mally invited foreign troops to enter Greek ter- 
ritory is wholly untrue." 

One other thing I wanted to know. I asked 
it frankly. 

"Your Majesty believes the Allied Balkan 
expedition doomed to failure?" 

"Certainly," replied the king, "it is doomed 
to failure if undertaken with no more men than 
are there now or than are on their way there. I 
told Lord Kitchener so, and he agreed with me. 
Great Britain does not seem disposed to send an 
adequate force, and France cannot do the job 
alone. The minimum army that can hope to 

117 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

accomplish anything in the Balkans is four hun- 
dred thousand men. As that number is not be- 
ing sent, that is my proof that it is Greece who 
must suffer and Greece who must pay for the 
failure of the Allied Balkan venture. If the 
Entente will assure me that when they are driven 
back into Greek territory they will consider the 
Balkan game up and that they will reembark and 
leave Greece, I shall guarantee with my whole 
army to protect their retreat against Germans, 
Bulgarians, or anybody else, and give them time 
to embark without any danger. Then I would 
be legitimately protecting my frontiers, and it 
would not involve Greece in any further risks. 
More I cannot do. The Entente demand too 
much. They are trying to drive Greece out of 
neutrality; they come into Greek territorial 
waters as if they were theirs; at Nauplia they 
destroy tanks of petroleum, intended for the ex- 
termination of locusts, on the excuse that they 
may be used by German submarines; they stop 
Greek ships, as they have done with American 
ships, too ; they ruin Greek commerce ; they want 
to seize our railways ; and now they demand that 
I take away my troops which guard the Greek 

118 



CONSTANTINE I TAKES A STAND 

frontiers, leaving my country open to invasion or 
to any lawless incursion. I will not do it," he 
almost shouted, striking the table with his fist so 
that the ink-pot jumped. "I am willing to dis- 
cuss any fair proposals; but two things I will 
not concede : Greece will maintain her sovereignty 
and her sovereign right to protect herself at 
need." 

"And if that is not satisfactory — if coercive 
measures are used by the Entente?" I ventured. 

"We shall protest to the whole world that our 
sovereign rights are violated. We shaU resist 
passively, as long as we humanly can, being 
forced by any measures whatsoever into a course 
which we know will be prejudicial to the liberties 
and happiness of our people." 

"And when you can't hold out any longer?" I 
asked. 

King Constantine sat silent for a space. Two 
or three times he flung his whole body forward 
as if to say something startling, but seemed to 
think better of it. Finally, that sense of humor, 
which is his most striking characteristic, came to 
the top. He smiled, rather grimly. With a 
quick shrug of his shoulders, he replied as if he 

119 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

were brushing aside a question, not answering it. 

"We shall have to demobilize our armies and 
await the march of events. What else can we 
do?" he said. 

Absolutely frank and plain-spoken, as Con- 
stantine of Greece is always frank and plain- 
spoken, his statement threw the Entente govern- 
ments into consternation. The veil of intrigue, 
politics, bargaining, and pretense was suddenly 
rent. Hating diplomacy. King Constantine 
spoke the truth; and the truth embarrassed the 
Entente diplomatists greatly. 

Two days later I sought Premier Skouloudis. 
Of him I asked also a statement of the situation. 
Mr. H. Charles Woods speaks of the former 
Constantinople banker as "one of the best in- 
formed men in the Balkan peninsula." He did 
not strike me so. In sharp contrast with his 
sovereign, he gave an immediate impression of 
being too clever by half, of unpleasant wiliness. 
His declaration, however, in this instance was 
straightforward, which was not always the case 
with his public statements. 

"Please tell the American people," he said, 
"that the Government of Greece has only two 

120 



CONSTANTINE I TAKES A STAND 

aims : to safeguard the sovereignty of Greece and 
not to leave neutrality, no matter by what reason 
we may be constrained to do so, or no matter what 
inducements or pressions may be brought to bear. 
I think I may say that the air which has been 
surcharged by misunderstandings for the past 
month is at last clearing. The Entente begins 
to understand that, while we are immovable on 
the two heads just stated, we are disposed in 
every other respect to give a material expression 
of the gratitude that every Greek feels toward 
France, Great Britain, and Russia, that dates 
from Navarino. Two points which have been a 
cause of recent friction are now in the way of 
amicable settlement. As far back as November 
10, I suggested the inappropriateness of diplo- 
matists who are not soldiers seeking to arrange 
the details of a situation, essentially military, of 
which they understood very little. I, therefore, 
proposed a conference composed of military ex- 
perts on either side who should be authorized to 
study the necessities of the situation and to re- 
port thereon, giving the Government and the 
Entente diplomatists the benefit of their conclu- 
sions from which a settlement could then be 

121 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

reached. To-day, finally, this proposition is ac- 
cepted ; Colonel Pallis of the general staff leaves 
for Saloniki to consult General Sarrail to this 
end. Respecting the railroads, the Government 
has never been unaware that the personnel is in- 
adequate to handling the immense increase of 
traffic due to the military uses to which the rail- 
ways are now put, but naturally we did not wish 
to surrender control of our own property; as Sar- 
rail offers to assist in the operation of the rail- 
ways, leaving Greek control unquestioned, our 
Government is only too glad to accept." 

"What about hunting down Austro-Grerman 
submarines in Greek territorial waters?" I asked. 

"That touches our sovereignty," replied the 
premier. "We protest to the world, especially 
to America, who is also neutral, that we cannot 
sanction violations of our territory ; but what can 
we do? We have only a small navy and a vast 
coast-line. We can only protest. 

"What we want to avoid — what we shall avoid 
— is associating Greece in the uncertain outcome 
of the war. Had we joined the Allies last spring 
when we were urged to do so, to-day we should 
have to bear the bulk of the cost of the failure of 

122 



CONSTANTINE I TAKES A STAND 

the Gallipoli venture. Had we joined at the in- 
ception of the recent Austro-German and Bul- 
garian attack on Serbia, we should now be bear- 
ing a large part of the price in blood and 
devastation which followed the crushing of Ser- 
bia. By following the two principles I have 
stated as governing Greece's foreign policy, we 
have been saved these two disasters. We shall 
continue to follow them, for there is our only 
salvation." 

In these two public declarations by the king 
and the prime minister of Greece the "i's" of the 
Entente policy in the near East had been dotted. 
A franker statement by the Entente than any 
heretofore given of their intentions in the Balkans 
became imperative. On December 8 the French 
minister to Greece, M. Guillemin, gave me such 
a declaration. 

"It is self-evident," he said, among other 
things, "that where the prestige of the Allied 
forces and the moral effect upon our enemies of 
keeping a threatening base in the Balkans are 
both involved in the retention of Saloniki, our 
withdrawal now would serve no purpose." 

Lord Kitchener and the military authorities of 
123 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

the Entente had lost. Mr. Venizelos and the 
Entente diplomatists had won. The policy of 
treating the Balkans as a political instead of a 
military question had received official sanction. 



CHAPTER VIII 

WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS 

Whatever the oiRcial protestations of the 
Entente governments and their ministers in 
Athens that it was "not the intention of the 
AlHed powers to constrain Greece to abandon 
her neutrahty," as the British communique of 
November 19, 1915, stated, there has been very 
plainly no other aim to Allied diplomacy in the 
near East from the moment Turkey joined the 
Central empires. Bulgaria's disaffection only 
sharpened this purpose. Not only was the pres- 
tige of the Entente at stake, but the personal 
ambitions of the Allied ministers in Athens had 
been badly set back by their failure to secure this 
end. At Downing Street and the Quai d'Orsay 
it was a matter of indifference what means were 
employed, so that the desired results were 
achieved. The French and British ministers, 
therefore, especially M. Guillemin, the former, 
were on their mettle. As I look through a 

125 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

number of his letters, the personal element looms 
far larger than anything else in his point of view. 
An exceedingly nervous man, overconfident of 
success from his arrival, impatient of contrarie- 
ties, he inclined to take the Entente failures in 
the near East as shafts directed at him, individu- 
ally. Never for a single moment did he recog- 
nize the Greeks' view of their own situation. He 
was rarely in contact with any Greeks save the 
followers of Venizelos, and governed his policy 
solely upon the assumption that Venizelos alone 
did, or ever could, represent the true opinion of 
the Greek people. Countless straws indicating 
to the observant a veering of Greek sentiment 
from unqualified support of the Entente, passed 
him unremarked. 

The obligation of Greece to France for the aid 
of the French fleet in the Greek War of Inde- 
pendence seemed to be the principal lever 
France counted upon to move Greece to co- 
operation in the present war. Her diplomacy 
was that of a bill collector trying to collect the 
debt of Navarino. Ignoring the history of 
Greece during three thousand years, the French, 
„who directed the Entente policy in the near East 

126 



WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS 

from the date of England's failure with Bulgaria, 
staked all on an appeal to the sentimentality of 
the Greeks, not to their practical sense. Venize- 
los was the Entente's man. A sentimentalist 
himself, he was willing to fling Greece into the 
vortex at any moment, on no conditions. The 
Entente view, therefore, was. Why treat with any 
one in Greece save Venizelos ? Their plan, to aid 
or at need to force Venizelos back into power 
and then to collect the aid of Greece as one would 
collect a note overdue. All the Entente eggs 
were in the Venizelos basket. 

In this the Italian and Russian ministers dif- 
fered from their French and British colleagues.^ 
By far the ablest of the Entente diplomatists in 
the near East, Count Bosdari and Prince Demi- 
doff followed the trend of events in the Balkans 
carefully and were at once alive to the gradually 
shifting sentiment of the Greek people in respect 
of the Entente. Neither had the slightest faith 
in Venizelos; both realized fully that the Cretan 
was playing his own political game in Greece 
with Entente backing and at Entente expense. 

"We need soldiers, not office-holders," was the 

1 For Italian opinion on the Allied policy in Greece, see Ap- 
pendix 5. 

127 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

succinct expression of Italian and Russian diplo- 
macy in Greece. 

There were other and far subtler reasons for 
this division in the diplomatic ranks of the En- 
tente — a division of which the Greek Govern- 
ment was probably better aware than the Allied 
governments, themselves. The British seizure 
of the disputed islands of Imbros and Tenedos 
and the Greek island of Lemnos at the mouth of 
the Dardanelles, on the eve of Venizelos's resig- 
nation in March, 1915 — and with his tacit con- 
sent — was destined to play a far larger role in 
world affairs than any other one incident of the 
war in the Balkan field. Indeed, it was the 
moving cause of the Russian Revolution. 

Just before Great Britain's seizure of these 
islands, Russia had vetoed the participation of 
King Constantine's army in the attack upon 
Constantinople. The moment Great Britain 
took possession of Imbros, Tenedos, and Lem- 
nos, Russian diplomacy changed. Previously, 
she had opposed Greece's entry into the war, 
unwilling to set up a rival claimant, operat- 
ing from a nearer base, upon the territory of a 
dismembered Ottoman Empire. But the three 

1S8 



WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS 

Greek islands are so placed that they can, if 
fortified, readily close the mouth of the Dar- 
danelles and effectively shut Constantinople off 
from the Mediterranean.^ In British hands, they 
constitute a key to Constantinople in English 
pockets. In the hands of weaker, poverty- 
stricken Greece, bound to Russia by ties of 
church and royal family, the three islands would 
be only a very remote menace, if any, to Russia's 
door upon the Southern seas. 

It is quite possible that Great Britain's occu- 
pation of the three islands was in good faith, 
for merely temporary use in military operations 
against the Dardanelles, and that they would 
be returned to Greece or surrendered to Russia 
after the war. But the imperial Russian Gov- 
ernment had misgivings on that head, and 
scarcely had Great Britain taken possession of 
the islands in question, than Russia withdrew 
her opposition to Greece's participation in the 
war. It was furthest from Russia's intentions, 
however, to support the cooperation of Greece 
offered by Mr. Venizelos — that on no conditions ; 

1 So near is Imbros to the Dardanelles that a number of us 
were able to follow the Allied operations at the Dardanelles 
from the hills of the island with ease. 

129 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

if the Entente was successful, Venizelos was ca- 
pable of ceding the comparatively uninhabited 
Imbros, Tenedos, and Lemnos to Great Britain 
in return for territories in Thrace, Albania, or 
Asia Minor where he could assure himself of an 
appreciable number of votes for his indefinite 
continuance in office as prime minister of Greece. 
King Constantine, on the other hand, had main- 
tained from the very first — and maintains still — 
that the indisputable condition of Greece's par- 
ticipation in the war on the side of the Allies 
must be a written Entente guarantee of the in- 
tegrity of Greece, including the disputed islands. 
Russia, therefore, from the hour of Great Brit- 
ain's seizure of the three islands, adopted a pro- 
Greek diplomacy centered upon the support of 
King Constantine, not of Venizelos, as the sole 
means of saving the gates of Constantinople 
from the command of British guns. 

The Italian motives were other, but the result 
identical. Nearer the field of diplomatic action, 
better acquainted with Greek psychology than 
any of the Entente powers, with a greater stake 
in the game perhaps even than Russia, and rep- 
resented in Greece by an astute and accomplished 

130 



WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS 

diplomatist, the policy of Italy was far more 
openly and vigorously pro-Greek than that of 
Russia. The Italians also favored King Con- 
stantine, not Venizelos. For Venizelos dreamed 
a greater Greece — a Greece absorbing the bulk 
of Asia Minor, extending from Kaz Dagh on the 
Gulf of Adramit at the north, indefinitely south- 
ward. Now the Italian ambitions centered first 
in the Dodecanese Islands — also Greek — of 
which Rhodes had been occupied in 1912, during 
the Tripolitan War ; and then in the neighboring 
Lycian coast of Asia Minor, northward, in pos- 
sible conflict with Venizelos's vision of a still 
greater Greece. 

It is true, Venizelos had no pledge from the 
Entente that his schemes would ever be realized, 
even were Greece to join the Allies. But he had 
the pledge of interest: a greater Greece divided 
into a hundred islands and separated from half 
her possessions by the Mgean Sea, bankrupt and 
with no considerable navy, would be slight 
menace to British or French command of the 
Eastern Mediterranean. A strong Italy, am- 
bitious, prosperous, and with a fleet carefully 
conserved to that end during the present war, 

131 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

would compete actively with France and Eng- 
land for control of the whole Mediterranean and 
preference in the markets of the near East. The 
desire of Venizelos to erect Greece into a big, 
loose, feeble empire, without strength and under 
his absolute control, appealed to French and 
British statesmen as an easy counterfoil to Italy's 
pretensions. King Constantine's declared inten- 
tion to retain and consolidate the lesser empire 
his sword had won in 1912 and 1913 appealed to 
the Italians as apt to leave them a freer hand in 
Asia Minor. 

Other still more practical considerations also 
moved Italy. A powerful Italy after the war 
must depend upon a maximum conservation of 
the Italian armed strength during the war. 
Should King Constantine's army not be joined to 
the Entente forces in the Balkans, her Allies 
were certain to call upon Italy to make up the 
deficit. Every Italian familiar with the situa- 
tion in Greece — and few Italian statesmen or 
journalists are not — was well aware that Veni- 
zelos was in no position to furnish an army 
worthy of the name to be added to the Entente 
forces in Macedonia. An Entente support of 

132 



WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS 

Venizelos was bound to mean ultimately, there- 
fore, a call upon Italy to send a hundred or so 
thousand men to Saloniki to take the place of the 
soldiers Venizelos could not supply without King 
Constantine's cooperation as commander-in- 
chief of the Greek army. 

Clearer headed than his other colleagues, 
Count Bosdari, the Italian minister to Greece, 
was never for a moment taken in by Venizelos. 
He regarded the Cretan as a very wily politician 
seeking to profit by the Entente's need, to bul- 
wark himself and his henchmen in control of 
Greece for years to come. That Venizelos would 
ever be of any real utility to the Allies did not 
appear to Count Bosdari as at all likely. On 
the other hand, he saw from the first that King 
Constantine's army could readily be secured to 
the Entente by a frank policy definitely eschew- 
ing interference in the internal politics of Greece 
and guaranteeing to Greece what was rightfully 
hers. The Italians, therefore, espoused this 
policy from the beginning and continued it, even 
in conflict with their own Allies, until the end 
of 1916. 

Holding both doors to the Mediterranean, at 
133 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Gibraltar and Egypt, dominating the central 
Mediterranean from Malta, and in possession of 
the keys to the Black Sea by her occupation of 
Imbros, Tenedos, and Lemnos, Great Britain 
was satisfied with her position in the Mediter- 
ranean. Not so France. The Italian plans of 
territorial expansion filled French statesmen 
with misgivings. The French control of Medi- 
terranean trade seemed threatened. Greece, al- 
ways devotedly French in ideals and associations, 
was proving recalcitrant. The whole situation 
in the near East was ground slipping from under 
the feet of the French. 

The expedition to Saloniki had been under- 
taken partly for reasons of internal politics in 
France and partly to strengthen France's pres- 
tige in the Balkans. Its failure had greatly 
weakened French prestige in the whole near 
East. The failure must be retrieved. Like a 
gambler who continues to stake against a win- 
ning bank, the French insisted stubbornly that 
they must win in the end in Greece. Like a 
gambler, too, their capital of affection and re- 
spect among the Greeks disappeared with amaz- 
ing rapidity with each new, desperate effort to 

134 



WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS 

regain what had been lost. "A pohcy of panic," 
as King Constantine put it. 

How official the conception was, it is impos- 
sible to state ; but that it was widespread among 
the French in Macedonia is indisputable. When 
the Greeks would not be "cajoled or coerced" 
out of neutrality, a plan of the conquest of Greece 
was born among the French in Saloniki or 
Athens and spread despite outward official dis- 
couragement. General Sarrail's armies were ac- 
complishing nothing in Macedonia. Should they 
descend upon Greece through Thessaly, ostens- 
ibly to rescue the Greek people from a "pro- Ger- 
man tyrant," two ends would be served. Sarrail 
and his forces would be extricated from a difficult 
military position without an acknowledgment of 
error or defeat, and the lost French influence in 
Greece would be regained — by force, it is true. 
Venizelos could be established as a dictator and 
a sort of pro-consul of France in the near East. 
A republic could be erected under the French asgis, 
which would in reality be a French protectorate, j 

The idea was alluring. I have heard it 
warmly supported by men of intelligence and po- 
litical influence in France. Departing from two 

135 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

assumptions : first, that King Constantine is pro- 
German and therefore an enemy of France ; and, 
second, that the Greek people desire passionately 
to join the Allies and are restrained from such 
a course only by the usurped power in the hands 
of their sovereign, a certain moral color could be 
given to the plan — the democratizing of an 
oppressed people, for example. Possibly it was 
for this reason that General Sarrail worked so 
actively in conjunction with the Venizelists to in- 
timidate the voters of Macedonia into support- 
ing the Cretan in the elections scheduled to take 
place in September, 1916, but, at Venizelos's own 
request, never held. The activity of Sarrail in 
Venizelos's campaign became generally known 
throughout Greece, where it worked rather 
against than in favor of the Cretan. The Greeks 
are suspicious and intolerant of foreign inter- 
ference in their internal politics. 

That General Sarrail did interfere there can be 
no doubt. On August 10, 1916, Pamicos Zym- 
brakakis, now a member of the revolutionary 
government, wrote Venizelos, then in Athens, of 
"a collaboration with the Entente powers and 
particularly with France who, at the psycho- 

136 



WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS 

logical moment, taking the initiative through 
Sarrail, will lend us her assistance by an immedi- 
ate consolidation of the new order of things" ; and 
referred at even so early a date to a plan then 
germinating for a revolution against the consti- 
tutional government, backed by the baj^onets of 
General Sarrail. Zymbrakakis further refers to 
Sarrail's feeling of "hatred against the crown" 
and asserts that the French commander "is of 
opinion that he will gladly participate in a plot 
the plans of which you [Venizelos] will lay." 
Mr. Eliakis, one of Venizelos's leading support- 
ers and electoral workers, wrote the Cretan from 
Cozani on August 3, 1916: "Sarrail's aide-de- 
camp, Mathieu ^ . . . told me to arrange with 
him through the consul, all affairs relating to the 
elections. They intend first of all to employ 
Cretan police to terrorize the Mussulmans." 
Mr. P. Arguyeropoulos, of the revolutionary 
government, an ex-prefect of Saloniki under 
Venizelos, added his testimony to the electoral 
services of the French commander in another let- 
ter to his chief. "General Sarrail, it appears," 
he writes, "has finally appreciated the necessity 

1 Vide supra. 

137 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

of close collaboration with us. Every day under 
my direction he takes measures useful to our in- 
terests." These letters, with many others found 
among the papers left by Mr. Venizelos when he 
fled from Athens, September 25, 1916, have all 
been published. I have seen the originals and 
many more such documents proving beyond any 
question the work of certain French officials in 
cooperation with the Venizelists, not alone in the 
Cretan's electoral campaign, but in his subsequent 
attempt to overthrow the constitutional govern- 
ment of Greece. 

It was through these rocks and shoals of in- 
trigue that each of the successive cabinets of the 
constitutional Government of Greece have been 
called to steer their ship of state since March, 
1915. That they have succeeded in avoiding the 
threatening dangers is not so much the miracle as 
that they have succeeded in divining them. Yet 
every man in Greece has been as aware of each 
phase of this complicated puzzle of diplomacy 
and counter-diplomacy as the Entente ministers 
themselves, and far better informed thereon than 
the governments or people of the Entente coun- 
tries, who have been given only one-sided reports 

138 



WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS 

by their diplomatic representatives in Athens, 
and only censored reports in their press. In 
Greece, however, while the Venizelist newspapers 
were seeking to implant the legend of King Con- 
stantine's pro-Germanism and to persuade the 
people that their only salvation from absolutism 
was to throw themselves into the arms of the En- 
tente — and of Venizelos — the opposition press 
was as busy explaining the interest of Russia in 
supporting Venizelos against the king and the 
interest of Italy in opposing France's imperial- 
ism in the near East to the profit of her own 
ambitions. 

The Greek, to the humblest bootblack who 
reads his paper propped up against his box as 
he cleans your shoes, was constrained to buy no 
pig in a poke. All there was to know of the mo- 
tives of the Entente, of King Constantine, of 
Venizelos, he knew. His choice was free. And 
when, on December first, at the first signal of the 
revolution of which Venizelos had, in Zymbra- 
kakis's phrase, *'laid the plans," he chose his king 
and his country and rejected Venizelos and the 
Entente, who shall say that his choice was not that 
of a free man, exercising an inalienable right? 

139 



PART II 
COERCION 



CHAPTER IX 

ENCROACHMENTS 

The first blockade, begun on November 17, 
ended in the unconditional capitulation of the 
Greek Government on December 11. The 
Greek troops, save a guard sufficient to maintain 
order, were to evacuate Saloniki, and a consider- 
able proportion of them were to be released from 
active service and sent to their homes. The rail- 
way from Saloniki into Serbia was turned over 
to the French. Allied trawlers, mine layers, and 
destroyers in search of submarine bases cruised 
unmolested in Greek waters as if no provision of 
international law required a belligerent vessel 
to quit neutral waters within a fixed period. 

The importance of the evacuation of Saloniki 
was much greater than appeared on the surface. 
Morally, Saloniki represented to the Greeks the 
fruit of their two victorious wars against Turks 
and Bulgars. To deliver the second city of 

143 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Greece into the hands even of friends was 
a great blow to their pride and their national 
spirit. Like the Entente note of August 3, 
1915, ceding Cavalla to Bulgaria, the Entente 
memorandum of November 25 left a distinct feel- 
ing of resentment among the Greeks, whose mil- 
itary cooperation the Entente were still seeking 
to secure. From a practical standpoint, the 
evacuation was still more significant. Saloniki 
is the central point of mobilization and the sup- 
ply base for the whole Greek army concentrated 
in Macedonia. With its evacuation, the Greek 
troops were divided into two unconnected forces, 
one to the east of Saloniki, with the inadequate 
open roadstead of Cavalla as a port ; the other to 
the west, with Vodena as a center, supplies being 
sent overland through Thessaly. It is important 
to realize that neither of these dispositions of 
troops was or could be practical from a military 
point of view. In both instances, transport was 
extremely difficult, the long retention of any con- 
siderable force impossible. In a word, the En- 
tente requirements necessitated, sooner or later, 
the complete evacuation of Macedonia by the 
Greek army. It was precisely for this reason 

144 



ENCROACHMENTS 

that the Greek staff opposed so strenuously 
the acceptance of the AUied demands. 

It should be added also that the presence of 
the Greek army on either wing of the Allied 
forces constituted virtually their sole protection 
from a flank attack by the Bulgarians, concen- 
trated in Macedonia from the conclusion of the 
French retreat from Serbia on December 15 until 
General Sarrail had completed the fortification 
of Saloniki as an entrenched camp. In their new 
exposed positions on the two wings of the Allied 
forces, the Greeks were in direct contact with the 
prospective invaders of their soil. At the same 
time their communications, from one wing to the 
other and between both wings and headquarters 
at Athens, were so destroyed by the enforced 
evacuation of their local base that they were 
necessarily at a very distinct disadvantage for de- 
fense of their frontiers from any invasion that 
might be attempted. In a word, they were 
thrust by the Allies into a precarious position of 
which General Sarrail held the key, with the hope 
that an overt act on the part of the forces of the 
Central empires would compel them not only to 
war with Bulgaria, but to enter upon hostilities 

145 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

under the supreme command of General Sarrail, 
who controlled their only means of waging war 
successfully. 

On December 19 the Greek elections were 
held. As the Venizelists did not participate, the 
ballot was extremely light — a fact which the En- 
tente press hailed as indicative that Venizelos still 
controlled the country, since his opponents polled 
only a negligible percentage of possible votes. 
The army, however, was mobilized and therefore 
the bulk of the voters of the country were legally 
deprived of their franchise. As the sole contest 
was between factions of those unanimous in op- 
posing Venizelos and his war policy, there was no 
particular reason for a heavy vote. Mr. Veni- 
zelos's manceuver in abstaining from elections 
which he had forced upon the country success- 
fully prevented any expression of popular will 
against war. Mr. Venizelos, therefore, as well 
as the Entente powers, claimed that the people 
of Greece favored war and desired Venizelos 
himself to guide their country into hostilities on 
the side of the Allies. The propriety of reach- 
ing a positive conclusion of vital importance 
upon negative reasoning of this sort is open to 

146 



ENCROACHMENTS 

question. It is significant as illustrating the 
growing unsoundness of the position of the En- 
tente in active support of their champion, Veni- 
zelos, and the illogical lengths to which an unsuc- 
cessful diplomatic policy in the Balkans was lead- 
ing Allied statesmen. 

The day following the election the Greek evac- 
uation of Saloniki began. General de Castelnau, 
chief of the French general staff, arrived in 
Macedonia to study the military situation of the 
Allied Orient armies. Later, on December 26, 
he visited Athens and talked at length with King 
Constantine. As in the case of Lord Kitchener, 
there was complete understanding between the 
two soldiers. General de Castelnau told me that 
he found the Greek sovereign cordially disposed 
to do all in his power to be of aid to the Allies, 
short of actual war. Constantine I expressed 
quite frankly to the French commander his doubt 
of the ability of the Allies to conquer the Central 
empires by force; but stated that he thought a 
definite conclusion of the war in the Allies' favor 
possible through a long economic and financial 
pressure. The Greek monarch asked General de 
Castelnau point-blank why the dilatory tactics of 

147 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

the Entente governments had permitted the fail- 
ure of the Dardanelles enterprise and the Serbian 
disaster. 

"No one denies that these unfortunate results 
are most regrettable," General de Castelnau re- 
plied. "It were very much to be desired that 
Belgium, Serbia, and Montenegro were still intact 
and that to-day Russia could be supplied through 
the Dardanelles. But we have to see the war as 
a whole. It would be folly, which might 
jeopardize the final victory of which alone we 
have any right to think, to undertake any mili- 
tary action without the completest preparation 
and every assurance of success humanly possible 
to obtain. If the war material and the military 
forces required were not available, however pain- 
ful inaction may prove, it were criminal to go oiF 
half-cock." 

"Just so," King Constantine replied; "that is 
precisely what I have told the French and Brit- 
ish ministers every time they have urged me to 
cooperate with the Entente in the war, when they 
have been unable themselves to guarantee a suf- 
ficient force to insure us all against disaster." 

General de Castelnau did not visit Venizelos 
148 



ENCROACHMENTS 

during his stay in Athens. To parry the effect 
of this upon the Cretan's followers, Venizelos's 
friends organized a popular manifestation in fa- 
vor of the former premier on his saint's day, De- 
cember 28. The demonstration was remarkably 
successful. Thousands of visitors called at the 
Cretan's house, and telegrams from Greeks all 
over the world poured in upon him. It was evi- 
dent that whatever the Greek people might think 
of Venizelos's war policy his personal popularity 
was undimmed. This, too, served to strengthen 
the Entente diplomatists in their close alliance 
with the Cretan, and spurred their efforts to 
compass his return to power. 

Meanwhile, the military and naval authorities 
of the Entente were sparing no opportunity to 
visit a resentment against the Skouloudis gov- 
ernment, for its policy of neutrality at any price, 
upon the whole Greek state. The demonstration 
on Venizelos's saint's day was emphasized by a 
French occupation of the island of Castellorizo, 
one of the Greek islands in dispute with Turkey 
since the unsatisfactory Greco-Turkish settle- 
ment in 1914. On December 30, following a 
successful German air raid on Saloniki, General 

149 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Sarrail ordered the arrest of all the consuls of the 
Central empires stationed in Saloniki, took 
forcible possession of their consulates, seized their 
official papers, and finally, with considerable os- 
tentation, deported them and a great number of 
their nationals, who had been arrested at the 
same time. A score of Greek subjects were also 
arrested on charges of espionage and propa- 
ganda. 

While the measure was not altogether a sur- 
prise to the Greek Government, and was one ob- 
viously dictated by military caution and to be 
anticipated from the moment it was decided that 
the Allied forces remain in Macedonia, the man- 
ner of conducting the arrests deeply wounded the 
Greek people. The Greek Government had 
been assured by the Entente ministers that the 
consuls of the Central empires would not be ex- 
pelled without previous warning. No warning 
was given, however, and on January 2 the Nor- 
wegian consul was likewise arrested and de- 
ported, and the consuls of the Central empires 
and the Dutch consular officer at Mitylene, as 
well as a number of Greek residents of that island, 
were taken into custody and expelled from Greek 

150 




/ 



I 



ENCROACHMENTS 

territory. The protest of the Greek Govern- 
ment for these events was couched in no measured 
terms. 

While irritating measures of this character, 
touching vitally the sovereignty of Greece, were 
being taken by the Entente military and naval 
authorities, a letter written by a member of the 
British naval mission in Greece, and found in a 
diplomatic pouch a German submarine had seized 
on the person of Colonel Napier, was made pubhc 
in Berlin and its text telegraphed to Athens. 
The writer advocated the dethronement of King 
Constantine by the Allies and the erection of 
Greece into a republic, with Venizelos at its head. 
The letter was a personal one and reflected no 
tangible official opinion. Nevertheless, there was 
no doubt in the minds of the Greeks that it re- 
vealed a plan which had been seriously discussed 
in the Entente legations at Athens. General 
Sarrail himself had been more frank than politic 
in his expressions along this line. The French 
minister to Greece was widely quoted as having 
declared of the Greeks that "the only way to 
handle these Orientals is by force." The recent 
course of the Allied military and naval authori- 

153 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

ties gave color to this alleged statement. While 
Venizelos himself at that period publicly refused 
to consider a republic in Greece as either desir- 
able or probable/ he permitted many of his fol- 
lowers to advocate, unrebuked, a revolution and 
a change of government. The Venizelist press, 
also under Entente supervision, conducted a bit- 
ter campaign against the Greek general staff with 
whose views the King was known to accord. 

The blockade, which had formally ended on 
December 11, proved to be still virtually in 
operation. The streets of Athens were kept in 
semi-darkness by the lack of coal. Breadstuffs 
increased rapidly in price, and the people of 
Greece as well as the army were slowly pinched 
as by an invisible hand. On January 6 the sup- 
ply of flour available for the Athenian bakeries 
was sufficient only for four days. A financial 
boycott by the Entente also made itself felt. The 
Skouloudis government was at its wits' end to 
maintain itself. 

Convinced that these repressive measures on 
the part of the Entente could only be intended 
to force him out of neutrality, King Constantine 

1 See Appendix 6. 

154 



ENCROACHMENTS 

felt that if his motives for remaining neutral were 
better understood, his sincerity would at once be 
appreciated, and public opinion would force an 
abandonment by the Entente of their policy of 
coercion. With this in view, the Greek mon- 
arch received one after another of the representa- 
tives of the foreign press to whom he explained 
his purpose with that engaging candor, that en- 
tire absence of any mental reservation, so char- 
acteristic of him. He felt that those who read 
his frank statements could not but appreciate and 
approve his attitude. It is a significant com- 
mentary upon public opinion in Europe in these 
war times that in not one country to whose people 
Constantine of Greece addressed himself directly 
through the public press did he find any sym- 
pathy with the stand he had taken to save his 
country from the horrors of war, or any real be- 
lief in the disinterestedness of his high purpose. 

One of these statements explaining his attitude 
King Constantine communicated also to me for 
publication in America, since it elaborated the po- 
sition previously taken in his declaration of De- 
cember 4, that "Greece would not be cajoled or 
coerced out of neutrality." When he gave me a 

155 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

resume of this statement, made originally to Dr. 
Fries-Schwenzen, the correspondent of the Lo- 
kal Anzeiger of Berlin, he begged me to "make 
the people of the United States understand that I 
am no more pro-German than President Wil- 
son," as he put it. "I am pro-Greek," he went 
on, "just as your President tries to be only pro- 
American. It is one of the saddest evidences of 
the blind hatreds and prejudices evoked by this 
war that people who should and in their sober 
senses do know better, insist upon imputing to 
others motives which they could never con- 
ceivably have entertained. 

"Whether the Balkan question will be satis- 
factorily solved by this European war I do not 
know," King Constantine declared. "No one 
dares to predict that in this part of the world 
another bloody war will not break out before a 
solution can be reached of these most complicated 
qufstions of nationality. No one hopes more 
than I that such a disaster can be avoided. But, 
as I have so often said, our taking part in the 
present conflict is not a Balkan matter — it would 
merely engulf us in a world struggle. The first 
victims of such a war are naturally the smaller 

156 



ENCROACHMENTS 

states having fewer resources within themselves. 
Our neutrahty, therefore, is not a sign of weak- 
ness, but the fruit of a dehberate intention to 
husband our strength for later difficult times. 
That is why I cling to my policy of conserving 
the freedom and interest of my people without 
spilling their blood." 

Respecting his attitude toward Germany and 
his brother-in-law, the Kaiser, the king said: 

"I am absolutely free. I am bound by no per- 
sonal interest. Wherefore I can say with a clear 
conscience that I have only the interest of my 
people before my eyes. . . . Besides, sentiment 
plays very little part in politics. I do not let 
myself be influenced by any sympathies, antipa- 
thies, or other feelings. I have the duty to look 
only after the interests of my people with all my 
ability." 



157 



CHAPTER X 

KING CONSTANTINE SPEAKS HIS MIND 

King Constantine's series of statements to 
the foreign press made no impression on the En- 
tente poKcy in the near East. The coercion ap- 
pHed to Greece continued unabated. What was 
left of the Serbian army, broken, starving, ex- 
hausted, decimated by cholera, arrived at the 
Adriatic coast of Albania. Not a third of the 
original force that had borne the shock of the 
combined attack of Bulgarians, Austrians, and 
Germans remained. The failure of the Entente 
to send the 150,000 men to Macedonia as prom- 
ised, the refusal of Great Britain to permit 
Serbia to attack the Bulgarians before their mo- 
bilization could be completed, the insistence of the 
Entente that Serbia make no separate peace, had 
done their work. As a fighting unit of any real 
military value, the Serbian army had ceased to 
exist. 

158 



KING CONSTANTINE SPEAKS HIS MIND 

The Austrians were in close pursuit of the 
Serbs. The latter begged refuge of Italy. But 
the Italian Government, fearful of an epidemic 
of cholera, refused. The remaining allies, in 
tardy pity upon the lot of the Serbs, seized the 
Greek island of Corfu, and in open violation of 
the Hellenic Constitution as well as of the 
treaty of 1864, by which the Ionian Islands 
were ceded to Greece on the distinct condition 
that they remain forever neutral, the Serbian 
army was established on the island. The Greeks 
protested that the cholera was quite as dangerous 
to the civil population of Greece as to the Italians. 
Their protest was ignored. The French took 
possession of Emperor William's chateau, the 
Achilleon. They hoisted the French flag upon 
the building and turned it into a hospital. 

Here, as in the seizure of the consulates of the 
Central empires in Saloniki, Mitylene, and else- 
where in Greece, Allied authorities expected to 
find proofs that enemy submarines were being 
supplied from Greece. They seem, however, to 
have been too credulous of an intelligence service 
whose activities were confined to mere unsub- 
stantiated assertions. The "compromising doc- 

159 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

uments" so freely promised to the press on each 
occasion of seizure, were not forthcoming. 
Nevertheless, the Venizelist press of Athens, 
under the direct supervision of a member of the 
British legation charged with that work, printed 
the most fantastic stories and the bitterest attacks 
upon King Constantine. The British and 
French press were only slightly less intemperate 
in their arraignment of the Greek monarch, on 
grounds for which no shadow of evidence existed ; 
not the slightest tendency to fair play toward the 
Greeks or the Greek sovereign was shown by the 
newspapers of either country. The "Echo de 
Paris" even suppressed a personal statement of 
King Constantine, by which the Greek monarch 
sought to place his side of the case before the 
French public. 

The blockade, for which no reason was ever 
assigned, was literally starving the Greeks. 
Factories were closed for lack of coal and thou- 
sands of laborers were thrown out of work. The 
claim of the Venizelist newspapers that the 
Cretan's dismissal from the premiership in March 
had been "unconstitutional" furnished the clue 
to these coercive measures : the Entente was seek- 

160 



KING CONSTANTINE SPEAKS HIS MINt) 

ing to compel the return of Venizelos to power, 
and through that means to add the Greek army 
to the Entente forces in Macedonia. The as- 
surances contained in the British Legation's com- 
munique of November 19, 1915, that "it is not 
the intention of the Alhed powers to constrain 
Greece to abandon her neutrahty" were shown 
to have been mere paper words marking a subtler 
policy of undeclared, but effective, hostility to 
every other regime in Greece save that of the 
Allies' man, Venizelos. This "unconstitution- 
ality" thesis was an afterthought. Venizelos 
himself had first accepted the Constitution of the 
Zaimis cabinet, and then had overthrown it, 
forcing the dissolution of the Boule and new elec- 
tions. It was only when he became convinced 
that elections would spell his defeat that he re- 
called the existence of the Constitution, article 
XCIX of which he had violated in his invitation 
to a foreign army to land on Greek soil, without 
a special law. 

The forced evacuation of Saloniki by the Greek 
troops ; the taking possession by the Allies of the 
Greek railways and telegraphs in Macedonia and 
the ^gean islands; the Allied seizure of Milo, 

161 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Castellorizo, and Corfu on top of their previous 
occupation of Imbros, Lemnos, Tenedos, and 
Mitylene; the press campaign in England and 
France against King Constantine and his gov- 
ernment; the continual blockade of Greece with 
no reason given for its maintenance — these things 
deeply angered the Greeks and did more to en- 
gender hostility against the Entente than all the 
rather too obvious and fruitless propaganda of 
Baron von Schenck, the German agent in Athens. 
The climax of an intolerable situation was 
reached when General Sarrail ordered his troops 
to destroy the steel bridge over the Struma 
River near Demir Hissar. The bridge consti- 
tuted the only line of communication between the 
Greek forces in eastern Macedonia and their staff 
commander. General Moscopoulos, whose head- 
quarters were still in Saloniki. It was also the 
only land means of transporting supplies to the 
Greek soldiers in that sector. The open road- 
stead of Cavalla offered very limited facilities for 
an organized commissary service. The bridge, 
too, had cost a great deal of money. Its destruc- 
tion for military purposes was scarcely necessary 
in view of the fact that the Greek army on the 

162 



KING CONSTANTINE SPEAKS HIS MIND 

Allies' right wing had once before protected Gen- 
eral Sarrail's force from a flank attack and were 
still in a position to do so again at need. So 
long as the Greeks did not evacuate eastern 
Macedonia, the Bulgarians could not descend 
into that sector without encountering a resistance 
from the Greeks whose mobilization was being 
continued solely to meet such an emergency. On 
the other hand, the evacuation of eastern Mace- 
donia — of which no one in Greece then dreamed 
— would have required weeks, owing to the lim- 
ited harbor facilities of Cavalla. There would 
therefore have been time a-plenty to destroy the 
Demir Hissar bridge before any such evacuation 
could be completed. 

The reason for General Sarrail's act was pre- 
cisely that which had motived the other drastic 
measures he had taken toward the Greeks. His 
intelligence service was largely composed of active 
adherents of Venizelos. The Entente legations 
in Athens secured the information they furnished 
General Sarrail from Mr. Venizelos himself, with 
whom they were in constant conference, and from 
his partizans. Both Mr. Venizelos and his fol- 
lowers wished to force the retirement of the Skou- 

163 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

loudis government, in the belief that King Con- 
stantine would be compelled to recall the Cretan 
to power and thus renew the contact of Venizelos' 
followers with the public treasury. Whatever 
advice these interested parties could give the En- 
tente officials to inspire repressive measures upon 
the Skouloudis government — and incidentally 
upon all of Greece — was given with a will. The 
interest of the Entente was enlisted by the as- 
surance that once Venizelos was returned to 
power, Greece would promptly be uncondition- 
ally joined to the Entente and an army of 
250,000 men added to the Allies, who were in dire 
need of such an increase of their force. 

King Constantine was as well aware of these 
intrigues and their motive as every one else in 
Greece. He had tried to clear the atmosphere 
by a frank statement of his intentions. When he 
found that this was misinterpreted, he made a 
number of more detailed explanations of the 
reasons for his attitude, to representatives of the 
foreign press. Neither were these received in 
any greater spirit of fairness to the Greek mon- 
arch. On January 13, therefore, when the news 
of the destruction of the Demir Hissar bridge 

164 



KING CONSTANTINE SPEAKS HIS MIND 

reached him, implying subtly as the act did that 
the Greek troops east of the Strmna River were 
a menace instead of a protection to General 
Sarr ail's army, King Constantine sent for me to 
come to the palace. 

He was very deeply mov«d by the trend of 
events in Greece and especially by the whole 
hostile attitude of the Allies toward his govern- 
ment, which he knew to be founded on no tenable 
grounds. He told me that he wished to express 
through the American press his profound indig- 
nation at "the unheard-of high-handedness of the 
recent action of the AlHes toward Greece." 
With scarcely suppressed rage he recited one by 
one a bill of wrongs committed by the Allied 
forces in Macedonia. Beginning with the unful- 
filled promise to send 150,000 men to the rescue 
of Serbia, which had almost induced Greece to 
share the tragic fate of her ally — a fate escaped 
only by the caution of the Greek general staff in 
delaying action until it could be seen how much 
of a force France and England would really 
send — ^he took up detail after detail of systematic 
mistreatment of the Greeks by the Entente. 
The pillage of the Greek churches in Macedonia 

165 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

of invaluable icons for which a few cents were 
left on the altar by the Allied soldiers who took 
them; the forced evacuation of Greek peasants 
from their homes to make room for Allied camps 
and earthworks ; the destruction of whole villages 
between the warring lines ; the Allied assumption 
of military control of Greece's second city; the 
Allied exercise of police powers in Greek waters ; 
the imprisonment of Greeks upon charges of es- 
pionage with no opportunity given them to defend 
themselves or to face their accusers — an unend- 
ing catalogue of what the indignant monarch 
called "the Allies' encroachments on the sov- 
ereignty of Greece, culminating in the occupa- 
tion of Corfu and the destruction of the Demir 
Hissar bridge." 

Probably no such arraignment of the conduct 
of civilized powers by the ruler of a free country 
as that I listened to from King Constantine has 
ever been made in history. He knew every 
wrong to every individual peasant, every insult 
flung at a veteran of Kilkis or Janina, every oc- 
casion upon which Allied aviators had dropped 
bombs as if by accident upon Greek camps — and 
he felt these things far more than all the abuse 

166 



KING CONSTANTINE SPEAKS HIS MIND 

and ridicule of his own person that had been pub- 
lished in the Entente press — with the permission 
of the government censors. 

"It is the merest cant," he thundered, "for 
England and France to talk about Germany's 
violation of the neutrality of Belgium and Lux- 
emburg after what they themselves have done 
and are doing here. I have tried every way I 
know how to get fair play from the British and 
French press and a fair hearing by the British 
and French public. No sooner has a British 
newspaper attacked Greece with the most amaz- 
ing perversions of fact and misrepresentations 
of motives than I have called its correspondent 
and given him face to face a full statement of 
Greece's position. I have given the frankest 
statement to the French press through one of the 
newspapers most bitterly attacking Greece. Its 
publication was not permitted by the French 
censor. The only forum of public opinion open 
to me is America. The situation is far too vital 
for me to care a snap about royal dignity in the 
matter of interviews when the very life of Greece 
as an independent country is at stake. I shall 
appeal to America again and again, if necessary, 

167 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

for that fair hearing denied me by the Allied 
countries. 

"Just look at a list of Greek territory already 
occupied by Allied troops — Lemnos, Imbros, 
Mytilene, Castelloriza, Corfu, Saloniki, including 
the Chalcidic peninsula, and a large part of Mace- 
donia. In proportion to all Greece it is as if 
that part of the United States won from Mexico 
after the Mexican war were occupied by foreign 
troops — and not so much as by your leave! 
What does it matter that they promise to pay 
when the war is over for the damage done? 
They cannot pay for the sufferings of my people 
driven out of their homes ! They plead military 
necessity. It was under the constraint of mili- 
tary necessity that Germany invaded Belgium 
and occupied Luxemburg. It is no use claim- 
ing that the neutrality of Greece is not guaran- 
teed by the powers violating it, as was the case 
with Belgium; for the neutrality of Corfu is 
guaranteed by Great Britain, France, Russia, 
Austria, and Prussia, and yet that has made no 
difference in their action. And what about that 
plea of military necessity? Where is the mili- 
tary necessity to destroy the Demir Hissar bridge 

168 



KING CONSTANTINE SPEAKS HIS MIND 

which cost a million and a half drachmae and 
which is the only practicable route by which my 
troops in eastern Macedonia can be revictualed? 
The bridge was mined and could have been blown 
up at a moment's notice at the approach of the 
enemy. It is admitted that no enemies were any- 
where near the bridge, and there was no indica- 
tion that they were coming. What military 
reason, therefore, was there to blow up the bridge 
now, except to starve out the Greek troops 
around Serres and Drama? Where is the neces- 
sity of the occupation of Corfu? If Greece is an 
ally of Serbia, so is Italy, and the transportation 
from Albania to Italy is simpler than to Corfu. 
Is it that the Italians refuse to accept the Serbs, 
fearing the spread of cholera? Why should the 
Allies think the Greeks want to be endangered by 
a cholera epidemic any more than the Italians? 
They say that they are occupying Castelloriza, 
Corfu, and other points in the search for sub- 
marine bases. The British Legation in Athens 
has a standing offer of two thousand pounds — a 
great fortune to any Greek fisherman — for in- 
formation leading to the detection of submarine 
bases, but it has never yet received any about a 

169 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

submarine base in Greece; no one has ever yet 
seen any submarine in Greek waters, and there is 
no evidence whatever of hostile submarines being 
supplied from Greece/ 

"The history of the Allied Balkan politics re- 
cords one crass mistake after another; and now, 
out of pique over the failure of their every Bal- 
kan calculation, they try to take out on Greece 
the result of their own stupidity. We warned 
them that the Gallipoli enterprise was bound to 
fail; that negotiations with Bulgaria would be 
fruitless ; that the Austrians and Germans would 
certainly crush Serbia. They would not believe 
us ; and now because all we said proved true, like 
angry, unreasonable children, the Entente turn 
upon Greece. They have deliberately thrown 
away every advantage they ever had of Greek 
sympathy. At the beginning of the war eighty 
per cent, of the Greeks were favorable to the En- 
tente ; to-day not forty — no, not twenty per cent, 
would turn a hand to aid the Allies." 

1 "The charges [that German submarines are supplied from 
Greece] against the government continued, though no foundation 
for them was ever. in any way brought to light. And that con- 
stituted one of the principal causes of the irritation which grew 
up against the Entente governments." — ^"Gazette de Lausanne" 
(Francophile); No. 209, 1916. 

170 



i 



KING CONSTANTINE SPEAKS HIS MIND 

"Why doesn't your Majesty demobilize?" I 
ventured to suggest. 

"Perhaps I shall," he replied, candidly, "but 
I don't feel that I can afford to disarm before the 
fate of Saloniki is decided. The AUies evacu- 
ated Gallipoli after a year. One day they may 
change their minds about Saloniki, leaving the 
place at the mercy of the first comer. Saloniki 
is Greek, and I propose that it shall remain 
Greek." 

"But does your Majesty believe," I persisted, 
"that the Greek mobilization can continue the 
year, perhaps the two years, the war may last; 
and will the Allies continue to furnish money 
for a Greek army that does not intend to aid 
them?" 

"They want Greece to remain mobilized be- 
cause they still believe we can be persuaded to 
join them. They are badly mistaken." 

One question had haunted me since I first met 
King Constantine. I knew — I had good reason 
to know — ^that he was in no sense pro- German. 
But to what extent had he been impressed by the 
military successes of the Germans so far in the 
war; how far was he moved in his attitude by 

171 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

fear of a complete German victory? I asked the 
question point-blank. 

"Does your Majesty believe Germany can be 
victorious?" 

"That depends on what is meant by victorious. 
If you mean she will take London, Paris, and 
Petrograd, probably not. But I believe the Ger- 
mans can defend themselves where they are for a 
very long time. If economic exhaustion does not 
force Germany to sue for peace, I believe it wiU 
be most difficult, if not impossible, to conquer her, 
militarily." 

"Then what does your Majesty think will be 
the outcome of the war?" 

"A draw — don't you?" he said, leaning for- 
ward suddenly and looking me squarely in the 
eye. For a moment a sort of panic seized me. 
I wondered if it could really be true. Then I 
remembered the men of France as I had seen 
them on their own battle line — not as they were 
in that far Macedonian land — so brave, so sure, 
so modest, so strong. 

"No, Sir," I said, quietly. "I do not." 



17a 



CHAPTER XI 

THE QUESTION OF GOOD FAITH 

Neither the French nor British Govermnents 
had any intention of permitting King Constan- 
tine's arraignment of their poHcy in the near East 
to reach the American pubHc to whom it was ad- 
dressed, could that be prevented. The Greek 
sovereign's appeal for fair play to the people of 
the United States filled the chancelleries of Lon- 
don and Paris with consternation. 

Before cabling my message to America I com- 
municated the content of King Constantine's 
statement to M. Guillemin, the French minister 
to Greece, with whom I was on most cordial 
terms. He rebuked me as a friend of France for 
transmitting a statement which he characterized 
as "German propaganda" and at once tele- 
graphed his government in cipher to have my 
message stopped by the censor. When I learned 
that this had been done, I sent a duplicate cable- 
gram over England — as all messages from 

173 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Greece to the United States must pass either 
through France or England and be subject to 
the Allied censorship — and I took the matter up 
with Sir Francis Elliot, the British minister to 
Greece. 

"Nothing is gained," I told the English 
diplomatist, "by suppressing one side of a case. 
The Allies have dozens of correspondents in 
Greece who flood the Entente and even the Amer- 
ican press with their side of what is happening 
in the near East. I believe that King Con- 
stantine is entitled to fair play, and I shall see 
that he gets it. If this message is stopped as a 
cablegram, it will arrive by post later. You can- 
not keep the truth down. You had better let it 
go through." 

Sir Francis seemed to agree with me and tele- 
graphed to his government his belief that the 
statement should pass. The British censors 
thought otherwise, however. The message was 
also held in London. I finally informed M. 
Guillemin that unless the message was passed, I 
should telegraph it to Berlin to be forwarded by 
wireless or, if necessary, would take it to New 
York in person, thus avoiding all censorships. 

174* 



THE QUESTION OF GOOD FAITH 

After six days of holding the message, Premier 
Briand decided at last that it would be more 
poHtic to let it go ; but he made it a condition that 
a semi-official reply from the French Government 
be published simultaneously. 

I accepted this compromise. The reply was 
prepared. A week after it had been given me by 
the King of the Hellenes, his statement was pub- 
lished by permission of the Allies, their counter- 
statement printed side by side with the Greek 
monarch's words. The counter-statement in 
substance declared that "the Allies only went to 
Saloniki to succor Serbia at Greece's invitation" ; 
as for the occupation of Greek territory with 
which King Constantine had charged the En- 
tente, the statement asserted, "There is no ques- 
tion of occupation, but of temporary use of 
certain portions." It is worthy of remark that 
the "temporary use" of some portions has al- 
ready lasted two and a half years and shows 
signs of constant extension rather than cessation. 

The French statement further set forth that 
the Greek Government "tried by every means to 
take part in the Gallipoli enterprise" — an asser- 
tion scarcely an accurate summary of the nego- 

175 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

tiations between Greece and the Entente in April, 
1915, as shown by the facts I have already 
brought out. In this connection a letter from 
ex-Minister Apostolos Alexandris to Venizelos 
written during the negotiations of April, 1915, 
and published in the "Bulletin Hellenique" of 
December 31, 1916, shows plainly enough that 
both Mr. Venizelos and his lieutenant were in a 
position to know that the Entente, from the first, 
were not disposed to accept Greece's proposals 
to join the Gallipoli expedition upon a basis of 
the recognition of Greece as an ally and a guar- 
antee of her integrity. Besides these points, M. 
Briand's unofficial reply to King Constantine's 
declarations makes no attempt to reveal what 
military necessity — presumably the basis of all 
censorship — had dictated the Entente's efforts to 
suppress altogether King Constantine's state- 
ment of his side of the case. 

Meanwhile, however, the French and British 
ministers had themselves drafted a reply to King 
Constantine, which they proposed to give me for 
publication. It was chiefly a bitter complaint 
of the work of Baron von Schenck, the head of 
the German propaganda in Greece, charging 

176 



THE QUESTION OF GOOD FAITH 

that any pro-German activity was inconsistent 
with Greece's promised "benevolent neutrality." 
The French and British ministers also asserted 
that German submarines were supplied from the 
Greek coasts and islands, and that the Greek 
Government took no steps to prevent this breach 
of benevolence toward the Entente. 

Though I have no proof of it, and though the 
British naval attache in Athens told King Con- 
stantine that he also had no proof of it, it is quite 
possible that German submarines have been sup- 
plied from Greece. As the British have con- 
trolled with an iron hand the distribution of every 
gallon of benzine imported into Greece — not a 
gallon being allowed to be sold without a writ- 
ten permit issued by the British legation — the 
supplying of German submarines from Greece 
seems to reflect rather upon the efficiency of the 
British control than upon the Greeks. By de- 
manding, in their memorandum of November 26, 
1915, the right to search Greek waters for enemy 
submarines and their bases, the Entente would 
appear to have relieved the Greeks of the respons- 
ibility of policing their own coasts. I have been 
informed by British ofiicers who reside on the 

177 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

west coast of Ireland that German submarines 
have been suppHed from that coast, and that the 
submarine that sank the Lusitania was so sup- 
phed. It would seem to be no easy matter to 
control the supplying of submarines, even in the 
thickly populated British Isles, and with Great 
Britain at war. How much less in the sparsely 
populated islands of the Greek archipelago! 

As for Baron Schenck's other activities, it is 
undoubtedly true that he subsidized certain Ath- 
enian newspapers ; that he paid for the singing of 
couplets ridiculing the Entente upon the stage of 
certain Greek reviews. I dare say he supplied 
certain minor politicians in Greece with funds. 
But for all this, the German influence in Greece 
remained negligible. Even to-day, when the En- 
tente has employed such drastic methods of co- 
ercion against the Greek people, it has made them 
only less favorable to the Entente cause; it has 
not made them pro-German. 

The fact of the matter is that the German in- 
fluence in the near East had swept on toward 
Constantinople and had not encountered Greece 
in its path. For this reason if for no other — pre- 
cisely because the German influence had extended 

178 



THE QUESTION OF GOOD FAITH 

widely in the Ottoman Empire — it had little hold 
in Greece. The Greeks bear an age-long rancor 
against the Turks; an influence dominant in 
Turkey would be hostilely regarded in Greece. 
On the whole, the best statement of the character 
and extent of the German operations in Greece 
is perhaps that which Baron von Schenck himself 
made me the day he was expelled from Hellenic 
soil by the Entente. I had asked him if he was 
satisfied with his labors in Greece. 

"Up to a certain point," he replied. "Thanks 
to the able assistance rendered me by the Allies, 
the results have far exceeded my greatest ex- 
pectations. You would be surprised if you could 
see my budget; the whole world would be as- 
tounded if it could realize how much has been 
done with so little. If the Allies continue to 
make such crass blunders as they have made in 
the last few days, I cheerfully leave my work in 
their hands." 

To the impartial observer in Greece the extent 
of the German propaganda appears to have been 
greatly exaggerated by three classes of persons, 
for three reasons: by those in charge of the 
Anglo-French propaganda and secret police, so 

179 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

as to secure greater credit for their work and to 
obtain from the British and French taxpayers 
vast sums of money devoted largely to wine, 
women, and automobiles; by the British and 
French diplomatists to account for the failure of 
their policy in the near East; and finally by the 
Venizelists to account for their inability to de- 
liver the country to the Entente, as they had set 
out to do. 

The statement prepared by Sir Francis Elliot 
and M. Guillemin in reply to King Constantine's 
indictment ends with one significant declaration: 
"The whole question between the Entente and 
Greece is one of good faith. If Greece loyally 
keeps her agreements, she will not suffer." 

So far, every demand made of Greece by the 
Entente, save that of leaving neutrality to sup- 
port Serbia, has been loyally granted. In what 
spirit was this very practical benevolence met by 
France and England? 

On January 17, 1916, General Sarrail took the 
supreme command of the Allied Orient armies. 
The event was the signal for constant friction be- 
tween Allied and Greek forces in Macedonia. 
Two days later certain Greeks were arrested in 

180 



THE QUESTION OF GOOD FAITH 

Athens, charged with being in the pay of the 
Entente to furnish them with the few remaining 
secrets of the Greek staff and the Greek plans 
for defending the territory left them by the 
Allied occupation of Central Macedonia. On 
January 20, the Allies placed a net at the mouth 
of the Greek harbor of Volo and it became neces- 
sary for Greek ships to have the permission of the 
Allied naval authorities to enter the port. On 
January 28, the Greek fort of Karabournou, at 
the mouth of the Gulf of Saloniki, was forcibly 
seized by General Sarrail, and the Greek garri- 
son disarmed and conducted to Saloniki under 
guard. The following day the German consul 
at Canea, Crete, was arrested, together with 
several Greeks, and deported by the Allies. On 
February 2, a German aviator, whose machine 
alighted within Greek lines in eastern Macedonia 
and whom the Greek Colonel Orphanidis was 
preparing to intern, was taken by force by a 
French detachment and made a prisoner of war 
of the French. On February 17, the consular 
officers of the Central empires in the island of 
Chios were likewise deported, a number of 
Greeks being arrested there as well. Incident 

181 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

followed incident of this nature, precisely as 
when the Germans made similar arrests in Lux- 
emburg, during the early days of the war. In 
each instance the man arrested had neither hear- 
ing nor appeal. His own, the Greek, govern- 
ment was unable to protect him, and any unsub- 
stantiated denouncement to the Anglo-French 
secret police by a creditor or a personal enemy 
was sufficient to condemn him to forcible banish- 
ment from his home and country, without trial. 

Meanwhile, to parry the very profound effect 
of the forcible occupation of Fort Karabournou, 
the French and British ministers officially in- 
formed the Greek premier on February 5 that 
the Allies would take possession of no more 
Greek territory and that "whatever might be 
done in the future would, as in the past, be under 
the pressure of military necessity," adding, how- 
ever, that "the withdrawal of the Greek troops 
from Macedonia would leave the Allied powers 
indifferent." 

General Sarr ail's defensive fortifications of 
Saloniki were completed. His force had been 
gradually increased to some 200,000 men. Prep- 
arations were under way for a spring offensive 

18a 



THE QUESTION OF GOOD FAITH 

against Bulgaria. To clear the ground, the En- 
tente ministers' statement to Mr. Skouloudis was 
cast out to warn the Greeks by implication that 
before the Allied conquest of their enemy, Bul- 
garia, began, they could either join the Allied 
armies or demobilize and leave eastern Macedonia 
undefended against a Bulgarian attack. As an 
official Entente communique put it, in diplomatic 
language, "It is the opinion of the Entente gov- 
ernments that it depends upon Greece in con- 
formance with her interests and the evolution of 
future events whether it is desirable to retain the 
Greek army mobilized." 

In the face of the prospect of a successful 
Allied campaign against Bulgaria, the Greeks 
began to waver in their neutrality. Prince 
Nicholas, King Constantine's brother, addressed 
a long conciliatory letter to M. Emile Hebrard, 
of the Paris "Temps," in which he reviewed in de- 
tail the relations between Greece and the En- 
tente, laying particular stress on the fact that 
King Constantine had never declared he was un- 
willing to leave neutrality under any circum- 
stances : 

Doubt has been expressed in the French and British 
183 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

press of the good faith and sincerity of our King, his 
government and the sentiments of the Hellenic people 
towards the Allied troops. . . . No suspicion could 
more deeply wound the national pride of the Hellenic 
people than distrust of their traditional hospitality, 
and doubt of the word of their sovereign. 

The condition imposed by King Constantine 
upon his cooperation with the Entente — the send- 
ing to the Balkans of a sufficient Allied force to 
conduct a successful campaign — was by the end 
of February in the way of fulfilment. The mo- 
ment was at hand when a single friendly gesture 
from France or England to the Greek sovereign 
would have added 250,000 Greeks to their army 
in Macedonia, bringing the total force for an 
offensive to 450,000 not counting the Serbs, who 
could be reckoned at about 80,000 more. It 
would have meant the conquest of Bulgaria, the 
cutting of the line from Berlin to Turkey, the 
opening of a southern, ice-free door into Russia, 
perhaps also the fall of Constantinople and the 
ending of the war in 1916. But the Entente 
diplomatists in Greece were lost in a maze of local 
politics. They were absorbed in fighting Veni- 
zelos's battles, intriguing with Venizelos's sup- 
porters and writing editorials for the Venizelist 

184 



a 
> § 

^> 

d ts 

> 

m 
> 

O 




THE QUESTION OF GOOD FAITH 

newspapers. In London and Paris, statesmen 
were occupied with other and more pressing 
problems than the attitude of Greece; they de- 
pended upon their diplomatic representatives to 
direct the Entente policy in the near East, and 
Mr. Venizelos had the diplomatic representatives 
of the Entente in his pocket. 

Then, suddenly, the German attack upon 
Verdun began, and seemed at first to succeed. 
Troops from Saloniki were shipped back to 
France to meet the emergency. The Entente 
Balkan offensive became evidently impracticable. 
The Greeks stiffened in their conviction that neu- 
trality was wisest for the present. The En- 
tente's opportunity came — and passed. 



187 



CHAPTER XII 

VENIZELOS ATTACKS HIS KING 

On February 7, 1916, I wrote General Sar- 
rail, suggesting that he visit King Constantine in 
person and seek to dissipate by a face to face 
discussion some of the friction accumulating so 
rapidly. Just before departing from Saloniki at 
the end of December, I had had a long talk with 
General Sarrail. He had recited the minor dif- 
ficulties and annoyances put in his way by the 
Greek officers stationed in Saloniki, and had re- 
viewed the handicaps under which he was work- 
ing, both in respect to the staffs in London and 
Paris and to his relations with the Greek Govern- 
ment. Evidently, his situation was not brilliant. 
A study of the character of the country, the roads, 
the bridges, the passes, the mountains, had con- 
vinced him that a minimum of half a million men 
was essential to any promising offensive. At the 
beginning of 1916 he had about one quarter that 
number, and there were no indications that he 
would ever receive the full quota from France 

188 



VENIZELOS ATTACKS HIS KING 

and England. In a word, the sole prospect of 
bringing his armies up to the required strength 
lay in securing the cooperation of the Greeks. 

"That," he said gloomily, "is in the hands of 
the diplomatists. But you may tell King Con- 
stantine one thing from me: I am a radical in 
politics, it is true, and I know that my socialistic 
views have been exploited against me with the 
king. But you may say to him that I am first 
and foremost a soldier of France. He is a sol- 
dier, a commanding officer victorious in two 
wars. Say to him that whenever he may decide 
to join us in the war, Maurice Sarrail, soldier of 
France, will be glad to serve under the orders of 
Constantine I, soldier of Greece." 

I conveyed the message to King Constantine. 
Sarrail's visit to Athens was the result. 

On February 18, the officers of the new Boule 
were received in audience by the sovereign and 
pronounced a discourse in which the monarch was 
lauded for having saved the country, under the 
powers conferred upon him by the Constitution, 
at a most critical juncture, from the horrors of 
war that had overtaken other small states tak- 
ing part in the general European conflict. There 

189 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

was no doubt that this statem'ent expressed the 
feehng of the whole country, even of all save the 
most fanatic of the Venizelists. But it was an 
unfortunate preparation for Sarrail's visit and 
for the success of his purpose to try to convince 
the commander-in-chief of the Greek armies that 
the military as well as political interests of Greece 
counseled a departure from neutrality. 

General Sarrail's arrival in the capital on Feb- 
ruary 21 was the signal for a demonstration of 
every jot of feeling of affection for France which 
the unhappy train of diplomatic events and mili- 
tary failures in the near East had left burning in 
the hearts of the Greeks. Plainly, there was still 
a great deal of sympathy left alive, for the 
French conmiander's reception was a cordial one 
both with the people of Athens and with King 
Constantine. The two soldiers understood one 
another from the first moment. Both brusque, 
both plain-spoken, both wholly frank, the foun- 
dations were at once laid for a wider understand- 
ing and cooperation of the dual forces in Mace- 
donia, which did not preclude a junction of the 
two armies in a common military emprise at 
the appropriate moment. The result of the in- 

190 



VENIZELOS ATTACKS HIS KING 

terview on the whole was mutual confidence; 
King Constantine repeating to General Sarrail 
the personal assurance he had already given Lord 
Kitchener, M. Denys Cochin, and General de 
Castelnau; and Sarrail explaining on his part the 
difficulties under which he was laboring and the 
military considerations that had impelled him to 
certain seemingly harsh measures. 

If the conference was not to bear early fruit 
in a military accord between the two command- 
ers, looking to Greece's entry into the war upon 
that purely military basis which King Constan- 
tine had advised from the start, those who had 
favored another basis of understanding must at 
once be active to prevent a favorable outcome of 
the interview. 

There were, evidently, two classes of persons 
who would be directly hit by a military accord 
between King Constantine and General Sarrail: 
the Entente diplomatists, whom such an arrange- 
ment would exhibit as ineffective in their nego- 
tiations; and the Venizelists, whom it would de-, 
prive of the spoils of victory in the shape of 
public office. I do not include the pro-Ger- 
mans, as that class was never very numerous or 

191 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

very powerful in Greece, albeit active far in ex- 
cess of its numbers and importance. To the 
Venizelists, however, a direct military under- 
standing between the king and the French gen- 
eral, without the Cretan leader as intermediary, 
spelled disaster to their entire political organiza- 
tion, which could no more live without office in 
Greece than a similar political organization can 
live without office in the United States. 

There occurred at this juncture, therefore, the 
first of a series of phenomena which continue to 
occur hereafter on every occasion when it appears 
at all likely that King Constantine may reach an 
agreement with the Entente through other means 
than through Venizelos: the Venizelists became 
active, shifting their previous ground to meet the 
altered circumstances. 

Following a long conference with the French 
and British ministers, five days after the depar- 
ture of General Sarrail, Venizelos announced out 
of a clear sky and in complete contradiction of 
his former refusal to recognize the constitution- 
ality of the Boule elected on December 19, or of 
the elections by which it had been chosen, that he 
would himself stand for the Boule in a by-election 

192 



VENIZELOS ATTACKS HIS KING 

to be held on May 8. Metelin was chosen by the 
Cretan, though eastern Macedonia and Chios also 
held by-elections at the same time, because Myti- 
lene (Lesbos) was then occupied as an Allied 
naval base, and the influence of the Allied au- 
thorities in the island could be counted upon to 
aid him in the election. Also, the voters of 
the island of Lesbos, like those of most of the 
territory fallen to Greek rule after the Turk- 
ish war, had none of the fixed political con- 
victions of the Greeks of old Greece, and were 
consequently the readier to follow the star of 
political adventure. During his premiership 
Venizelos had bound the Lesbians, as well as the 
inliabitants of all the newly acquired territory, 
to his political fortunes by the creation of a vast 
number of well-paid offices in new Greece, the 
recipients of which became at once his ardent sup- 
porters and political organizers. Upon this 
practical foundation rested and still rests the 
power of Venizelos in Greece. 

The effect of Venizelos's change of front was 
to consolidate instantly all elements opposed to 
the conservative government under Premier 
Skouloudis. A complete lack of political instinct 

193 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

and a certain furtiveness of policy in Stephan 
Skouloudis had succeeded in increasing the nor- 
mal Venizelist strength throughout the country 
by an appreciable number of political malcon- 
tents. To these might be added the bulk of the 
refugees from Thrace and Asia Minor who had 
congregated in Greece to await the outcome of 
the war. Venizelos's program of a still greater 
Greece naturally appealed to them, since it meant 
the incorporation of their homes in the Greek 
state. There were several hundreds of thou- 
sands of these refugees throughout the country, 
mostly without resources. Many of these eagerly 
sought and obtained well paid employment in 
the Venizelist organization. Indeed, later, when 
Venizelos attempted to organize his followers 
into an army, it was largely upon this element, 
not upon the genuine Greek population, that he 
drew for the nondescript, undisciplined force he 
succeeded in gathering together. Their enlist- 
ment with the revolutionary "army" was like 
their allegiance to the Venizelist cause, a ques- 
tion of bread. Their sole alternative was to join 
Venizelos or starve. They joined Venizelos. 
In addition to these refugees, a small but very 
194 



VENIZELOS ATTACKS HIS KING 

well-to-do group of Egyptian Greeks filled the 
best hotels of Athens. By association and for 
business reasons thoroughly pro-English, they 
contributed heavily to the well-filled Venizelist 
coffers, in the hope of receiving honors or con- 
tracts at the hands of the Cretan when he should 
again become prime minister of Greece. Even 
the American minister made no secret of his Ve- 
nizelist sympathies, not only while the Cretan 
remained in Athens, but after he had left the 
capital on a mission of undisguised sedition.^ 

The popular strength resisting this hetero- 
geneous opposition to the existing Government 
was composed of the Greeks of old Greece, — 
peasant proprietors, solid business men, skilled 
artisans, and the professional classes, — the kind 
of people who make up the conservative element 
in any country. The former had everything to 
gain and nothing to lose by war ; the latter, every- 
thing to lose and nothing to gain. King Con- 
stantine's problem, to move the conservative 
element to accept and support war, was not only 
an essential one if the country was to be united 
in its cooperation with the Allies, but a very dif- 
ficult one, requiring every assistance of under- 

' See Appendix 3. 

195 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

standing and latitude from the Entente authori- 
ties themselves. His was not a sentimental, but 
an actual, problem. The Entente, true to their 
policy of sentimentality in the near East, not only 
failed to appreciate the magnitude of the task, 
but put every possible difficulty in King Con- 
stantine's way. 

To prepare the ground for emerging from 
neutrality, the king called General Moscopou- 
los, in command of the Greek forces in Mace- 
donia, from Saloniki to go over with him the kind 
of military cooperation desired of Greece by the 
Entente. In nominal fulfilment of the En- 
tente's desire for a demobilization of the Greek 
Macedonian forces, a fourth of the men and of- 
ficers were granted leave of absence to return to 
their homes, ostensibly for spring planting. 
They were still held, however, in the national 
service and subject to a moment's call. General 
Dousmanis, chief of the Greek staff, elaborated 
a plan of concentration of the Greek troops that 
would place the Greek army at the strategical 
point where it could be of most assistance to the 
Allies. This he altered from day to day with the 
shifting of the Allied or their enemies' forces. 

196 



VENIZELOS ATTACKS HIS KING 

The British mihtary attache, Sir Thomas Cun- 
ningham, who had worked with General Dous- 
manis to this end, was recalled "for being too 
closely connected with the Greek staff" ! 

To prepare public opinion for ultimate Greek 
cooperation with the Entente, some of the king's 
closest advisers undertook to inspire the govern- 
ment press to play up every incursion of Bul- 
garian troops beyond the Greek frontiers, every 
raid of comitadjis into Greek territory, and 
every incident between the Greek and Bulgarian 
frontier guards.^ 

When this work was well under way. General 
Sir Bryan Mahon, the British commanding officer 
in Saloniki, visited Athens; and in several talks 
with the king, his closest adviser. Prince Nicho- 
las, and the English Princess Alice of Battenberg, 
an exceedingly clever woman, with a very clear 
view of the situation, he assisted King Constan- 
tine to persuade the less warlike of his supporters 
by furnishing him with further arguments in the 
shape of details of the Entente force, equipment, 

iThus on March 11 a great stir was made in the government 
organs over the arrest by the Bulgars of a Greek soldier who 
had inadvertently crossed the frontier; and three Greek regi- 
ments were rushed to Drama to be ready should this incident 
be fixed upon as the spark necessary to set the war-fire alight. 

197 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

and impregnable military position at Saloniki. 
At the same time General Mahon advised the 
Greek monarch that the question of an Allied 
-aff ensive in Macedonia was up for discussion, and 
would probably be settled by the Allied war 
council then in session in Paris. 

While King Constantine was thus employed in 
laying the ground for joining the Entente, every 
circumstance seemed to be working against that 
end. The Allies in Saloniki seized and occupied 
the Greek fort at Dova Tepe, northeast of Lake 
Doiran, one of the most important Greek fron- 
tier strongholds. Following the occupation of 
Fort Karabournou, this seizure created an un- 
happy impression in the military circle of Athens. 
The westward extension of the Allied lines across 
the Vardar River brought their positions into a 
country infested with malaria, and Sarrail was 
forced to send shipload after shipload of his 
force to France for convalescence in another cli- 
mate. To outward appearances also, albeit the 
French were holding at Verdun, the German at- 
tack was taxing their resources to the utmost. It 
was scarcely possible to dream of an Allied of- 
fensive, necessarily largely dependent upon the 

198 



VENIZELOS ATTACKS HIS KING 

French, in Macedonia. King Constantine might 
be as ready as he pleased to join the Allies; there 
was no prospect of accomplishing more by such a 
course than to increase the expense of maintain- 
ing the Allied Orient armies on a war-footing to 
no immediate practical end. For such negligible 
service as that King Constantine was never pre- 
pared to risk throwing his country into war. 

The two classes of those in Athens who were 
opposed to a military accord between the king 
and General Sarrail, moreover, were as busily at 
work as the sovereign himself. On the part of 
the Entente diplomatists, the Anglo-French 
secret police, operating from the respective lega- 
tions, continued to inspire arrests of Austrians, 
Germans, and Greeks, whom they charged with 
espionage. An insignificant incident at Candia, 
in Crete, gave the British naval authorities an 
excuse to seize Suda Bay, the best naval base 
in the eastern Mediterranean, to secure posses- 
sion of which had been the underlying motive of 
years of international intrigue by which the 
island of Crete had been kept from joining 
the Greek parent state.^ Shortly afterward the 

1 Former French minister for Foreign Affairs, M. Gabriel Han- 

199 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Greek port of Argostoli, on the Ionian coast, was 
also seized as a base for the Alhed naval opera- 
tions. These encroachments upon Greece left 
no little irritation in the popular mind. But in- 
side the government circles a more important 
matter was the financial difficulties in which the 
country now found itself from prolonged mobili- 
zation. Roughly, the mobilization of the Greek 
army was running the Government to some 
$180,000 per diem. The Greek deficit for 1915 
had been in the neighborhood of $36,000,000. 
By the end of March, 1916, it had reached $75,- 
000,000. Greece was almost at the end of her 
financial string. The Entente ministers in 
Athens welcomed this new difficulty of the Skou- 
loudis government as an additional lever to force 

otaux, nourished no illusions as to England's intentions toward 
"Crete with her greatly coveted port, Souda Bay." 

"It is no mystery for any one that England harbored in re- 
spect of the near Eastern question, views not exactly in conform- 
ance with those of her partners." 

"It were impossible to overlook a fact of such considerable 
importance as the journey of Messrs. Asquith and Winston Church- 
ill and their meeting in the island of Malta with General Kitch- 
ener, and the announcement of the reinforcement of the British 
garrisons in Egypt, Malta, and Gibraltar. Those who are familiar 
with Mediterranean politics have a right to ask whether this has 
not something to do with 'protecting' Souda Bay. The fate of 
Crete will be decided as a consequence . . . The crux of the situ- 
ation was in Crete." 

"La Guerre des Balkans et I'Europe," pp. 24, 28, 193, 295. 

SCO 



VENIZELOS ATTACKS HIS KING 

the return of Venizelos to power. To that end 
they tightened the purse-strings of their govern- 
ments at home and confidently waited the issue. 
The only result of this attitude, however, was to 
force the resignation of Minister of Finance 
Dragoumis, an able man of the highest character 
and former premier of Greece. 

Meanwhile Venizelos and his followers were 
still more active, since to them it was a matter of 
political life or death. No sooner had Venizelos 
announced his change of policy and his reentry 
into the political arena than he established a per- 
sonal organ in Athens, the weekly "Herald," and 
planned a series of political meetings intended to 
complete the Entente ministers' work of over- 
throwing the Skouloudis cabinet by attacking its 
motives and those of the king from press and 
platform. 

On April 2 the first number of the "Herald" 
appeared. It contained a long and veiled edi- 
torial from the pen of Venizelos in which the 
patriotism of his sovereign was assailed. The 
secrecy with which the plan of making an open 
fight upon King Constantine was guarded is 
characteristic of the Cretan's methods. Though 

201 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

he had promised me an advance copy of the edi- 
torial in question, I was told to follow him from 
the theater without joining him until, in a dark 
square, I was bidden mount into a closed carriage 
with him. We then drove together to the office 
where the "Herald" was being printed. Here, 
while Venizelos sat, screened from prying eyes, 
in one corner of the vehicle and I in another, a 
proof copy of the paper was thrust into the car- 
riage by one of the Cretan's adherents. The 
carriage then sought a secluded spot, where 
Venizelos read the proofs by the light of a street 
lamp. Finally he gave them to me, subsequently 
dropping me in a deserted side street, far from 
either his house or my hotel. The whole per- 
formance had the air of a conspiracy, which, in- 
deed, it was, or at least its beginning. 

A short time previously I had had a long talk 
with Venizelos and he had gone over with me 
again his relations with King Constantine, stat- 
ing categorically his thesis that "under the con- 
stitution the King of the Hellenes is merely the 
highest functionary of the state, paid like any 
other functionary to perform services of which 
the limits are plainly set by the Constitution." 

202 



VENIZELOS ATTACKS HIS KING 

He charged the sovereign with violation of the 
Constitution, and when I quoted those articles 
which seemed to confer upon King Constantine 
the power he had exercised, Venizelos replied, 
"King Constantine's father was elected — hired, 
if you please — to be a sort of hereditary presiding 
officer of the Greek democracy, without other 
than social responsibilities." 

Unfortunately, half a dozen articles of the 
Greek Constitution do not bear out this thesis.^ 
Possibly it was for this practical reason that 
Venizelos's editorial in the "Herald" was a gen- 
eral review of what he termed "the shipwreck of 
our national aspirations," and that greater stress 
was laid on what Greece might have reaped by 
joining the Entente in the way of territorial ag- 
grandizement than was placed upon the constitu- 
tionality of King Constantine's course. He at- 
tacked the royal attitude only in his summing up 
of the danger to Greece of a German victory 
and a greater Bulgaria. "Politicians who do 
not see this inevitable danger," he wrote, "are 
blind, and unhappy are the monarchs who follow 
such advisors; unhappier still the countries 

1 See appendix 2. 

203 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

whose sovereigns are victims of such counsel." 
The significance of the publication of this at- 
tack on the king lay in the fact that it revealed 
an intent to render Constantine I, despite his 
undoubted popularity, personally responsible for 
the failure of Greece to secure vast territorial 
advantages by Constantine's refusal to exploit 
the Entente's need of military assistance in the 
near East. It demonstrated that an attack on 
the throne could be made with impunity and that 
fear of the Entente would prevent retaliatory 
measures being taken by the constitutional gov- 
ernment against those evidently preparing revo- 
lution. It emboldened the followers of Venize- 
los to every form of charge against the motives 
and person of the sovereign of Greece. Had not 
this first, feeble step been taken with success, 
Venizelos's formation of a revolutionary govern- 
ment under the segis of the Allies at Saloniki 
would have been impossible, and the uprising of 
December 1, 1916, could not have been conceived. 
Above all, it revealed to the timid among the fol- 
lowers of Venizelos that, with the bayonets of 
Sarrail to support them, and the guns of the 
Allied fleet to cover them, they could plot in 
security what revolution they liked. 

204. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE TRANSPORT OF THE SERBS 

King Constantine declined to take any public 
notice of Venizelos's attacks upon his policy. To 
me he simply said: 

"Arguments cannot alter the attitude of 
Greece. It is based on facts; only new facts 
can change it. If the material situation in the 
Balkans so shifts that the interests of Greece 
appear in another light than that of to-day, no 
one, least of all I, has ever said that Greece will 
not adapt her attitude to the altered circum- 
stances. Further talking and writing serve only 
to confuse the issue." 

The change in the material situation in the 
Balkans to which King Constantine had refer- 
ence was that upon which he had laid much 
stress from the beginning; namely, that the En-' 
tente at last decide to take their Balkan opera- 
tions seriously and send sufficient force and war 
material to Macedonia to prosecute a successful 

20S 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

offensive campaign. But the Greek sovereign 
might say what he pleased about confusion to the 
issue by talking and writing; neither Venizelos 
nor his followers proposed for a moment to re- 
frain. Emboldened by the success with which he 
had opened his first attack upon the throne in the 
"Herald," Venizelos at once began a series of 
public meetings also, with the purpose of arraign- 
ing the Skouloudis cabinet and at the same time 
covertly undermining Constantine I as head of 
the Greek army, the well-spring of that sover- 
eign's vast popularity with the Greek people. 
To this end the Cretan adopted the contention 
that the Greek monarch's policy was nothing less 
than an assertion of the doctrine of the divine 
right of kings. 

"Here in Greece," he said to me, "we are con- 
fronted with the question of whether we have a 
democracy presided over by a king, or whether at 
this hour in our history we must subscribe to the 
doctrine of the divine right of kings. The mo- 
ment has come when the position of the highest 
functionary, which every King of the Hellenes 
ought to occupy, must be so strictly defined that 
it will be forever impossible to raise again the 

206 



THE TRANSPORT OF THE SERBS 

question of the divine right of kings in Greece." 
Whether any one save Venizelos himself had 
ever raised the question of the divine right of 
kings in Greece is seriously open to doubt. Cer- 
tainly, seven years previously, during the Revo- 
lution of 1909, he had had in his own hands the 
opportunity to alter the fundamental law of 
Greece in any sense he liked. The people 
clamored for a constitutional assembly, and 
Venizelos literally shouted them down in the 
great meeting in Constitution Square. At that 
time King George was just the figurehead that 
the Cretan now desired to see upon the throne of 
Hellas; and Venizelos then, conserving in the 
crown every reactionary power laid down in the 
first Greek charter, had wielded in the name of 
the king an absolute authority. What had up- 
set his political calculations of seven years be- 
fore was the accession to the Hellenic throne of 
a man capable and willing to discharge in his own 
name and on his own responsibility the powers 
conferred upon the King of the Hellenes — 
powers that Venizelos had carefully kept in the 
Constitution with a view to administering them 
himself. 

207 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

It was precisely this exercise of his constitu- 
tional rights by King Constantine which had been 
the undoing of Venizelos's ambitions. The Cre- 
tan's reasoning was, therefore, that the powers 
vested in the crown were proper powers when in 
the hands of a weak sovereign, improper ones in 
the hands of a capable ruler. The lack of logic 
in this attitude did not trouble him. 

"It has never been my habit," he wrote General 
Corakas some months later, "to base my calcula- 
tions on purely logical and historical grounds, but 
rather upon the principle of psychological reac- 
tions, of general impressions, however vague they 
may be, and upon the law of force and of domi- 
nation which is stronger than all laws written or | 
unwritten." ^ 

Nevertheless, he did not advocate the establish- 
ment of a republic in Greece. "The habits of 
ages of slavery through which the Greek people 
have passed," he said, "are still too strong. The 
conscious exercise of the responsibilities and privi- 
leges of a republic cannot spring into being in a 
moment with any people." In a word, Venize- 
los quietly proposed a dictatorship for Greece, 
with himself as dictator. 

I Appendix 6. 

208 



THE TRANSPORT OF THE SERBS 

To attain this end, he must first overthrow the 
Skouloudis government and return to power as 
prime minister of Greece. He accordingly at- 
tacked, in the "Herald" and in the public meet- 
ings which began at once, both the Government 
and the elections by which the Government had 
secured its majority in the Boule — those elections 
of December 19, 1915, in which he had refused to 
allow any of his followers to take part. He 
called them a "burlesque of the free exercise of 
the right of suffrage," a "farcical formality," and 
a "sinister comedy." "The present Government 
of Greece," he declared to me, "is therefore in no 
wise representative." He referred to his par- 
tizans as "a majority of the Greek people," and 
on the whole, having refused to participate in the 
last elections, he now made a great clamor for 
new elections, which he felt confident he could 
carry. 

All of this internal uproar interfered greatly 
with King Constantine's purpose of preparing 
the way for an ultimate military accord with 
General Sarrail. That of course was exactly the. 
aim of the Venizelists, who redoubled their efforts 
to confuse the issue when General Sarrail decided 

209 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

to call what remained of the Serbian army from 
Corfu to Saloniki to take part in the general 
hostilities. At the time, there were in Saloniki, 
roughly, some 80,000 French and 120,000 British. 
A Serbian army of 75,000 would bring the total 
available force in Macedonia up to 275,000 men, 
albeit by no means as many bayonets. With 
250,000 Greeks, however. King Constantine 
figured that the required half -million would be 
certain, and that a Balkan offensive with at least 
some chance of success could be undertaken. 

Lest this result should be achieved and their 
hopes of return to power (and proximity to the 
treasury) be dashed, the followers of Venizelos 
were forced to find some way to embroil the situ- 
ation in Greece before the transport of the Serbs 
to Macedonia could be effected. 

The occasion required presented itself in the 
very problem of the means of transporting the 
Serbs from Corfu. Rested after the incredible 
fatigues of their retreat through Albania, re- 
fitted, the "third ban" (those too old or too worn 
to be of any fighting value) weeded out, the 75,- 
000 remaining of an original Serbian army of 
300,000 was at last in shape to begin a third effort 

210 



THE TRANSPORT OF THE SERBS 

to rid their native soil of the invader. Mean- 
while, however, owing to the activity of the Ger- 
man submarines in the Mediterranean, water 
transport was becoming exceedingly perilous. 
The Allied fleet seemed unable to cope with the 
problem with any definite result, and the loss of 
vessels every few days presaged ill for the Ser- 
bian army, should it be necessary to transport it 
by sea. 

All of this the Serbs brought to the attention 
of their greater Allies. They pointed out that 
their reduced numbers were a result of the failure 
of France and England, in fulfilment of a defi- 
nite promise, to send the necessary 150,000 men 
to their rescue in November, 1915. They re- 
called the fact that they had twice since the be- 
ginning of the European War been offered fa- 
vorable terms for a separate peace by Austria- 
Hungary, and that twice their greater Allies had 
prevented acceptance by making promises that 
had not been fulfilled. They declared that they 
were willing to fight to the last man, but that they 
could see no reason why they should drown as the 
Montenegrins had drowned, because the power 
that claimed to rule the wave seemed unable to 

ail 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

rule the deep. In the representations of the 
Serbs were combined a resentment for the En- 
tente pohcy of friendship towards Bulgaria, 
anger over the needless sacrifice that had been 
made of them by the Entente's dilatory tactics in 
the near East, and some rancor still remaining 
from the way they had been deprived of an outlet 
on the sea by the greater powers during the nego- 
tiations following the wars of 1912 and 1913. 

There was so much justice in the observations 
of the Serbs that the Entente Governments were 
disposed to do what they could to content their 
unhappy allies. A glance at the map revealed a 
railroad across Greece from Patras to the Piraeus 
and from the Piraeus by way of Athens to Salon- 
iki, with only a brief gap near Ekaterina still 
under construction. It is doubtful if the Allied 
military authorities considered for a moment 
what it would mean to the Greeks to have 
their railway system tied up for two months or 
more for military purposes. The Greeks had 
already accepted so many demands, had borne 
with forbearance so much that was contrary to 
international law as well as to the Greek Consti- 
tution, that the Allied diplomatists in Greece 

212 



THE TRANSPORT OF THE SERBS 

scarcely expected any opposition to one more 
infraction of Article XCIX of the Greek charter. 
Nor, indeed, in all probability, would there have 
been any except for the stir the Venizelists made 
over the matter, and the manner in which the 
question was broached by the Entente to the 
Greek Government. 

On April 12, the Entente ministers in Athens 
announced their intention to transport the Ser- 
bian army across Greece, exactly as on August 
3, 1915, they had announced their intention to 
give eastern Macedonia to Bulgaria, or as they 
had announced their intention on December 27, 
1915, to employ Corfu as a refitment camp for 
the broken Serbian armies. Only a complete 
ignorance or a supreme indifference to the psy- 
chology of the Greeks could have dictated a fur- 
ther continuation of this method of diplomatic 
procedure. Easily persuaded, the Greeks are 
with difficulty driven. It was so in this instance. 

There were, however, other elements in the 
situation. The Allied occupation of Suda Bay 
and Argostoli as naval bases left a considerable 
uneasiness in the minds of the Greeks as to the 
extent to which the Allies' pretensions to the use 

21S 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

of Greek territory outside Macedonia might go. 
So deep was this feehng that Sir Francis EUiot 
was forced to make a pubhc statement to the 
effect that the Entente "were asking of Greece 
no more than miMtary necessity required." The 
Greeks could not see, besides, why the fact that 
the greater powers had treated the Serbs shabbily 
should cause hardship to be visited upon Hellas, 
or why Greece should suffer to make up for the 
deficiencies in the Allied operations against Ger- 
man submarines. 

But the deciding cause of the Skouloudis gov- 
ernment's refusal to countenance the transport 
of the Serbs across Greece was the fear that the 
presence in and about Athens of so large a force 
of Serbs would be seized by the Venizelists as the 
moment to effect a coup d'etat, overturning the 
constitutional government, perhaps even dethron- 
ing King Constantine. Already there were in 
Athens a large number of Serbian refugees who 
had exhibited a lively interest in Venizelos's cam- 
paign for the entry of Greece into the war in ful- 
filment of the Greco- Serbian alliance, as Venize- 
los interpreted that document. Having lost 
everything, they were in a mood to undertake 

214f 



THE TRANSPORT OF THE SERBS 

anything. Their presence in the Greek capital 
had long been a source of ill ease to the Govern- 
ment. 

It was generally known in Athens, also, that 
the Venizelists at this time were arming them- 
selves and storing in their homes ammunition ob- 
tained largely from France. No concealment 
was made of the fact. The Entente's announce- 
ment of their intention to transport the Serbian 
army across Greece became known at a moment 
when the Venizelist attack upon the Skouloudis 
government was at its height and abuse of King 
Constantine was bitterest. So much partizan 
feeling had already been engendered that imagi- 
nation, run riot as is so often the case in the near 
East, predicted the most fantastic events for the 
hour when the Serbs should reach Athens. 

Moreover, the Greek staff declared that, with 
the roadbeds of the Greek railways in their ill- 
kept state and a lack of rolling stock due to 
General Sar rail's seizure of all the rolling stock 
waiting in Saloniki the completion of the Athens- 
Saloniki railway, it would require nearer three 
than two months to move the Serbian army across 
the country. During this time not only would 

215 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

virtually all regular traffic in Greece be sus- 
pended, but the Greek army, a large part of 
which was still mobilized and scattered over the 
entire country, would be left without communi- 
cations with its various bases of supphes. On 
paper the question of the transport of the Serbs 
appeared easy enough to those discussing it in 
London and Paris ; in practice, it was almost im- 
possible, fraught as it was with complications in 
the internal life of Greece. 

At this crisis, the Boule, which alone could pass 
the law required by the Constitution to permit a 
foreign army to traverse Greek soil, adjourned. 
On April 25, Sir Francis Elliot and M. Guille- 
min waited upon King Constantine, and a stormy 
interview resulted. The Greek monarch's posi- 
tion was simplicity itself. He sincerely believed 
that the very sovereignty of Greece was at stake 
in this matter. He had reason to know that the 
Venizelists were planning a coup d'etat with the 
assistance of the Serbs, and while he had no doubt 
on the score of how such an attempt would end, 
he felt that he not only had no right to risk an 
abortive revolution with perhaps fighting in the 
streets of Athens itself, but that it was his duty 

216 



THE TRANSPORT OF THE SERBS 

as head of the state and commander-in-chief of 
the Hellenic armies to avoid, by every means in 
his power, such a threatening prospect for the 
peace of his country. This view he exposed to 
the two diplomatists, refusing at the same time, 
categorically, to consent to the transport of the 
Serbs. 

The British and French ministers were equally 
stubborn, declaring that the Entente would 
transport the Serbian army across the country 
with or without the consent of King Constantine 
and his ministers. The conference ended with 
no conclusion reached. That same night, as if in 
support of the king's contention, an attempt was 
made to blow up the Bulgarian legation in 
Athens by two bombs which, upon examination, 
were found to be regular Serbian army bombs, 
made in England. 

While the discussion of the land transport of 
the Serbs continued, the water transport was un- 
der way. Venizelos and his followers took up 
the Serbian side and further embittered feeling 
in Greece by attacking King Constantine on this 
new coi:.nt, despite the fact that this time the 
Greek sovereign stood unquestionably on the side 

217 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

of the Constitution. There was one element of 
possible conciliation: Rear Admiral Hubert S. 
Cardale, the acting head of the British naval mis- 
sion in Greece, who had fought with the Serbs 
during the second Austrian invasion and stood 
exceedingly well with them/ and who, during 
some five years of residence in Greece, had been 
able to remain on excellent terms with both King 
Constantine and Venizelos. It is possible that he 
might have arranged a matter now embroiled far 
out of proportion to its real significance. Just 
as a short time before the British military attache 
in Athens had been recalled for being on cordial 
terms of cooperation with the Greek staff, so now 
Admiral Cardale was also recalled. The British 
policy in Greece seemed dictated not by the cir- 
cumstances but merely by extreme reaction from 
the British policy pursued in Bulgaria. Any 
one in the least able to appreciate the point of 
view of the Greek Government was considered 
suspicious and at once got rid of. 

In all of these negotiations the Greek view of 
the situation was ignored as of no consequence. 

1 He was decorated for distinguished bravery with the Order 
of Crni Gjorgje, a Serbian order corresponding to the Victoria 
Cross. 

218 



THE TRANSPORT OF THE SERBS 

That Greece was at peace and straining every 
nerve to remain at peace was never even consid- 
ered. That King Constantine was seeking to 
keep his country united against a violent attempt 
from within the state to disrupt it — an attempt 
countenanced and supported by the Entente — 
was regarded as mere stubbornness on the part 
of the Greek sovereign. The only thing that 
counted was that the plans of the Entente should 
not be interfered with by Greece's neutrality or 
any effort of the Greeks toward national self- 
preservation. It is this that gives the matter of 
the transport of the Serbs its significance. The 
Serbian army arrived in Saloniki by water safely 
enough. But the fact that the Greek Govern- 
ment had dared to refuse a demand of the En- 
tente was regarded as setting a dangerous prece- 
dent. The policy of Great Britain and France, 
— for in all of this neither Russia nor Italy 
shared, — it was felt, must be altered at once so 
that in future no opposition to the Entente's 
wishes could develop. To do this, Venizelos 
must be returned to power once more, whatever 
the Greek people might desire and whatever 
means might be necessary to employ to accom- 

219 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

plish that end. And Venizelos's continuance in 
power must be secured by such measures of AUied 
control in Greece as to eliminate the expression 
of any adverse sentiment. 

In a word, as King Constantine had foreseen, 
the sovereignty of the Greek people was indeed 
at stake. 



220 



CHAPTER XIV 

FORT RUPEL 

The by-elections in Chios, Lesbos, and eastern 
Macedonia early in May resulted, as had been 
expected, in a complete victory for the Venize- 
lists : Elephtherios Venizelos himself was elected, 
without opposition, in Lesbos. Even in eastern 
Macedonia, part of which Venizelos, when prime 
minister, had tried to turn over to Bulgaria, Con- 
stantine Jordanou, a Venizelist, carried the coun- 
try by a small majority. Throughout newer 
Greece, come under Greek rule only since the 
Turkish war of 1912, Venizelos's policy of fur- 
ther increasing the size of Greece by accretions 
in Asia Minor and Thrace appealed to the people. 
Many of them had relatives, property, or inter- 
ests in Asia Minor and Thrace. They wished to 
see their friends and families freed of Turkish 
rule ; what might happen to Greece as a result of 
so large an increase in alien population — an an- 
nexation of territory extensively inhabited by 

S21 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Mussulmans as well as by Greeks — was a matter 
of indifference. A Cretan himself, but a short 
time in touch with any of the life or ideals of Old 
Greece, Venizelos understood only this point of 
view; he never appreciated that of the Greeks 
proper. It was, therefore, among the newer 
Greeks that he counted and still counts his sup- 
porters. 

But while eager enough to see Greece vastly 
increased in size through a general Alhed victory, 
the inhabitants of the islands and eastern Mace- 
donia shared the reluctance of the inhabitants of 
Old Greece to accomplish this result by their own 
unaided efforts. When, therefore, immediately 
following elections in which the majority of the 
voters had supported Venizelos's policy of a still 
greater Greece, the Bulgarians began prepara- 
tions to invade eastern Macedonia, the inhabi- 
tants of eastern Macedonia were less pleased with 
the prospect. 

Meanwhile, the least conspicuous and most 
effective of the Entente pressures put upon the 
Skouloudis government, to force its resignation, 
was having a marked effect. The financial situ- 
ation of the country was exceedingly precarious, 

222 



FORT RUPEL 

and the refusal by France and England to let the 
Skouloudis cabinet obtain any monies abroad put 
the Government in a desperate case. For this 
reason during the by-elections, while the Venize- 
lists disposed of unlimited funds, lavishly spent, 
the conservatives were unable to meet the ordi- 
nary campaign expenses, which are, in Greece, 
proportionately greater even than in the United 
States. The payments due the army had been 
in arrears for some time, and the sums which the 
families of mobilized men should have received 
had never been paid since the mobilization had 
begun. Cut off from the possibility of securing 
money from abroad, Finance Minister Rhallys, 
therefore, executed an arrangement with the 
National Bank of Greece for a loan of one hun- 
dred fifteen milhon drachmae (some $23,000,000) 
calculated to produce a hundred million drach- 
mae for the Government's use. Thirty million 
of this amount was to be obtained by an addi- 
tional issue of paper currency which the specie 
reserve of Greece fully justified, but which the 
indebtedness of Greece rendered, possibly, a risky 
financial operation. The Greek Government, 
however, had no choice. 

223 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

The proposed convention with the National 
Bank upset the financial interests in France and 
England at once. Both countries had financed 
Greece for years and both realized fully the ad- 
vantages which their financial hold on the coun- 
try gave them in development of their trade with 
Greece as well as, in times like the present, when 
financial pressure could be brought to bend the 
Greek Government to meet the political wishes 
of the two larger powers. The Entente mem- 
bers of the International Financial Commission, 
therefore, fought the conclusion of the projected 
arrangement with the National Bank with every 
means. Nevertheless, the convention was signed. 
The prospect of its ratification, and the conse- 
quent escape for Greece from their financial grip, 
hastened the decision of France and England to 
employ drastic measures in dealing with Greece. 

The water transport of the Serbs was well on 
the way to completion. The Entente diploma- 
tists had lost their fight to force the Skouloudis 
cabinet to permit a transport by land. Politi- 
cally, this was a check to the Allies in Greece; 
financially, the convention between the Skou- 
loudis government and the National Bank was 

2M 



FORT RUPEL 

another check. Militarily, the failure of the 
Serbian adventure and almost eight months' in- 
activity of General Sarrail's army in Macedonia 
were also prejudicial to Entente prestige in the 
near East. Every consideration pointed to some 
sweeping change of policy on the part of the 
Entente to regain the lost ground. 

Two courses were possible : to cease supporting 
Venizelos and the politicians and reach an agree- 
ment with King Constantine and the Greek 
general staff for the military cooperation of 
Greece with the Allies ; or to seek by force to turn 
out the Skouloudis government, demand new 
elections and provide Venizelos with every sup- 
port to enable him to win them. The results in 
Chios, Lesbos, and eastern Macedonia convinced 
the Entente diplomatists that Venizelos would 
sweep the country. They therefore chose the 
latter course. 

From the moment General Sarrail assumed 
supreme command of the Allied Orient armies 
and the Greeks completed their evacuation of 
Saloniki, General Moscopoulos, the Greek com- 
mander in Macedonia, had urged the French to 
extend their lines to the east of the Struma River 

225 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

and to take effective control of the Greek points 
of strategic importance in that sector/ He ex- 
plained repeatedly that the Greeks, cut off from 
their base of supplies at Saloniki, partially de- 
mobilized at the insistence of the Allies, and de- 
pendent upon an open roadstead as a port, were 
in no position to resist successfully a strong at- 
tack from the north. Instead of extending his 
line, however, General Sarrail had further em- 
phasized the isolation of the Greeks by destroying 
the Demir Hissar bridge, two and a half miles 
south of the Greek Fort Rupel, on the east bank 
of the Struma. Thus Fort Rupel was as effectu- 
ally cut off as if it had been located in Bulgarian 
territory. All the military embarrassments un- 
der which his troops labored, and which King 
Constantine had exposed to Lord Kitchener, 
were ignored. The statement of the French and 
British ministers that "the withdrawal of the 
Greek troops from Macedonia would leave the 

1 One thing is astounding : several months ago both French and 
Greek oflScers pointed out to General Sarrail the importance of 
Fort Rupel and his advantage in taking possession of it. It is 
rather difficult to understand why this advice vi'as not followed, 
the army at Saloniki being plenty large enough to permit this 
slight extension of the AUied front and numerous other points 
having already been previously occupied. — "Gazette de Lausanne," 
No. 218, 1916. 



FORT RUPEL 

Allied powers indifferent" seemed to be the key- 
note of the Entente policy toward the Greek 
forces in eastern Macedonia. At bottom the in- 
tention was undoubtedly so to weaken the posi- 
tion of the Greeks in this sector that any effort 
to resist a Bulgarian advance single-handed 
would be fruitless and the Greeks, to defend their 
own territory from invasion, would be forced to 
join the Allies. 

Whether or not this was a deliberate, thought- 
out policy on the part of the Entente, counting 
for its success on the Greek fear of the Bulgars 
and hostility to them, is not material. Certainly 
Mr. Venizelos, in discussing an apocryphal dec- 
laration alleged to have been made by the Greek 
monarch to the correspondent of the "Berliner 
Tageblatt," of his conviction that "the Bulgarians 
will evacuate the Greek territory when they shall 
have driven their enemies out of Greece," showed 
that he believed his king could not stand against 
the anti-Bulgarian sentiment in Greece, and that 
a Bulgarian invasion would force the Greek 
monarch to join the Allies whether mihtarily 
prudent or not. No one seems, however, to have 
counted the possible cost to the Allied arms of 

227 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

this attempt to thrust the King of the Hellenes 
into a corner, whence his only escape would be in 
the Entente camp, should it fail. Yet the entire 
policy of trying to force Greece into war through 
the weakness instead of by the strength of her 
military position ran counter to all that Con- 
stantine had frankly said to Lord Kitchener and 
General Sarrail. 

Every logic pointed to a retirement of the 
Greeks before a Bulgarian advance. Two 
months previously Venizelos had declared to me, 
"I know that the orders have gone forth that if 
hostile armies enter the land we so recently 
conquered, the Greek forces must withdraw and 
permit the scene of our most glorious victories to 
become the battle-ground of strangers." Pre- 
cisely that took place on May 26. The Bulgar- 
ians appeared before Fort Rupel and demanded 
its evacuation by the Greek troops, offering a 
written guarantee that the fort with all its con- 
tents would be restored after the war, that private 
property would be protected, and that the terri- 
tory temporarily occupied would be evacuated 
later. Prime Minister Skouloudis accepted the 
offer, entering a formal protest against an act 



FORT RUPEL 

of hostility, which his government communicated 
to the Entente ministers. Fort Rupel was 
promptly abandoned by the Greek troops, who 
first rendered its guns useless ; the Bulgarians oc- 
cupied the stronghold, precisely as the Allies had 
occupied Fort Karabourhou and Fort Dova 
Tepe. In speaking of the Government's action. 
Premier Skouloudis characterized it as the only 
practical course open to Greece. 

Resistance, after the condition of helplessness to which 
our armies in eastern Macedonia have been reduced by 
the disposition the Entente have demanded of them, 
would have been ridiculous. The best we could do was 
to secure certain written guarantees, which were given 
us only on condition that we would not attempt resist- 
ance. Had we resisted, we should have been forced 
into war and I fail to see what we should have gained 
by it. 

The Venizelists seized the opportunitj'^ to 
organize anti-Bulgarian meetings and to try to 
inflame public feeling to war pitch. The French 
minister in Athens consulted his government and 
General Sarrail, and six days later made it plain 
to Prime Minister Skouloudis that the surrender 
of Fort Rupel would be taken by the French and 
British governments as the ostensible reason for 
the adoption of a still more drastic policy in deal- 

229 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

ing with Greece. M. Guillemin informed the 
Greek premier that the Entente considered the 
surrender of Fort Rupel a violation of Greece's 
promised "benevolent neutrality." He stated 
that General Sarrail would take whatever 
measures the military situation created by this 
act of the Greeks required, without previous 
warning. On June 3, General Sarrail declared 
martial law in all parts of Greece occupied by 
the Entente. On June 6, Sir Francis Elliot 
told the Greek Government that "if the Ger- 
man and Bulgarian advance into Greek terri- 
tory continued unresisted, the consequences to 
the Greek Government would be most serious." 
The advance, however, seemed to halt at Fort 
Rupel and the bridgehead of Demir Hissar, as 
Sir Francis himself admitted. Nevertheless, 
on June 6, an undeclared blockade of the 
Greek ports began with great rigor, and every 
effort of the Greek Government to obtain from 
the Entente an explanation of the blockade or a 
statement of the terms upon which it would be 
raised proved unavailing. 

The Venizelists were more communicative. 
They asserted, evidently with the knowledge of 

230 



FORT RUPEL 

the Entente, that the blockade was to force the 
resignation of the Skouloudis cabinet, the dis- 
solution of the Boule and new elections, which 
the Venizelists counted upon carrying. Their 
pro-war propaganda at this moment was at its 
height. In reply to it. King Constantine, ad- 
mitting the impossibility of defending eastern 
Macedonia with the force he was permitted to re- 
tain and under the military conditions prevail- 
ing in that section, ordered on June 8, the demo- 
bilization of 150,000 men. At the same time the 
French fleet occupied the island of Thassos, oif 
Cavalla; but no Entente force was sent across 
the Struma to prevent any further Bulgarian 
advance southward, and no effort was made to 
replace the retiring Greeks in eastern Macedonia 
by Allied troops. 

On June 12, six days after the beginning of 
the blockade, the Government decided to order 
a complete demobilization. The Venizelist pro- 
war propaganda, violent as all newspaper po- 
lemics in Greece are, inspired an equal anti-Veni- 
zelist propaganda on the part of the government 
organs. Charges and countercharges resulted 
finally in an attempt to assassinate King Con- 

231 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

stantine by a mad Venizelist who cried that the 
applause of which the Greek sovereign had just 
been the recipient at a function in the Stadium 
was "paid for by Baron von Schenck." The at- 
tempt was followed by a counter-demonstration 
against the Venizelists in which a number of 
Venizelist newspaper offices were stoned. To 
the blockade the Entente added a further turn of 
the financial screw by ruling Greek loans off the 
London and Paris stock exchanges. The po- 
sition of the Skouloudis government was plainly 
untenable. The king sent to ^gena, where 
Mr. Zaimis was spending the summer, and re- 
quested the former premier to consult with him 
concerning the formation of a new cabinet. 

At this moment a curious circumstance reveals 
the position occupied by the entire Entente policy 
in the near East. Neither the Greek sovereign 
nor his government had been able up to that mo- 
ment to ascertain in what form the Entente would 
make the demands conditional upon lifting the 
blockade. But Mr. Venizelos and his followers 
were in no such ignorance. No sooner had the 
king sent a destroyer to fetch Mr. Zaimis than 
Mr. E. Repoulis, one of Venizelos's right-hand 

2S2 



FORT RUPEL 

men, wrote the Cretan a hasty note acquainting 
him with the fact, and urging the dehvery of the 
Entente note at once, before the Skouloudis cab- 
inet could resign and Mr. Zaimis, whose friend- 
ship for the Entente was well known, could be 
installed as premier. Mr. Respoulis wrote quite 
as if not the Entente, but Mr. Venizelos himself, 
were the author of the Entente ultimatum and 
were directing the diplomatic action of the Allies. 
His thought was plainly not to see certain guar- 
antees obtained for the Entente, but to draw out 
of the embarrassing position of the Skouloudis 
government the maximum advantage for Veni- 
zelos and his partizans. As far as Repoulis and 
Venizelos were concerned, the Entente did not 
figure in the situation, save as a mere instrument 
to the forwarding of the political fortunes of 
Venizelos and his followers. Thanks to the 
prompt action of Venizelos, on Mr. Repoulis's 
representations, the Entente ultimatum was pre- 
sented the following day, June 21, before King 
Constantine could constitute a cabinet whose 
character would render the presentation of any 
ultimatum superfluous. 



233 



CHAPTER XV 

THE FIRST ULTIMATUM 

The presentation of the Entente ultimatum of 
June 21 was so hurried by the fears of the Veni- 
zelists that a cabinet acceptable to the Entente 
would be formed before the document could 
be delivered, that Vice Admiral Moreau's fleet, 
which was to make a demonstration off the 
Piraeus simultaneously with the presentation of 
the ultimatum, had not yet arrived when the note 
was left at the ministry for foreign affairs. The 
Skouloudis cabinet, however, had resigned that 
morning, and Alexander Zaimis was not yet able 
to form a new ministry. The note was therefore 
returned to the ministers who had left it. These 
circumstances of haste in the action served to 
convince the doubting how much the demands 
themselves were a matter of internal politics of 
Greece rather than of that consistent foreign 
policy of high ideals dictating the course of 

234 



THE FIRST ULTIMATUM 

the Entente powers elsewhere in their world 
struggle. 

The demands proper were preceded by a sort 
of preamble stating that "the three guaranteeing 
Powers do not require Greece to leave her neu- 
trahty. They have, however, certain complaints 
against the Greek Government, whose attitude is 
not one of loyal neutrality." To this followed 
an indictment of the Skouloudis cabinet for every 
action in which it failed to show positive and prac- 
tical favor toward the Entente, however much the 
action complained of may have been a direct re- 
sult of the previous course adopted by the Allies 
themselves. Of this preamble. King Constan- 
tine said, "It is useless to discuss the demands 
themselves, when the reasons given for them in 
the document are devoid of truth from beginning 
to end." The actual demands constituted, in the 
opinion of Deputy Agamemnon Schlieman, for- 
mer Greek minister to Washington, "an abdi- 
cation of the sovereignty of our own country." 

They were : 

1. Real and complete demobilization of the Greek 
army which must, with the least possible delay, be put 
upon a peace footing. 

2. The immediate replacing of the present Greek 

235 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

cabinet by a business cabinet having no political color 
and offering all necessary guarantees for the applica- 
tion of benevolent neutrality toward the Allied Powers 
and sincere consultation of the national wishes. 

3. The immediate' dissolution of the Boule followed 
by new elections after the period required by the Con- 
stitution and after a general demobilization has re- 
stored the electoral body to normal conditions. 

4. The replacement of certain police functionaries 
whose attitude, inspired by foreign influence, has facili- 
tated attempts against peaceful citizens as well as 
insults against the Allied Legations and those under 
their jurisdiction. 

Nothing would be gained by seeking to 
deny that the four demands constituted a very 
grave interference in the internal affairs of 
Greece in behalf of Venizelos and his party. 
The Greek Constitution was to be applicable only 
where convenient: the cabinet, which constitu- 
tionally must be responsible to the people and 
whose term had not expired, was to be dismissed ; 
elections were to be held within the constitutional 
period, only if the demobilization had "restored 
the electoral body to normal conditions" — in fine, 
only if it were evident that Venizelos could carry 
the country ; otherwise, the Constitution was to be 
suspended and elections were not to be held. 
The success of the Venizelists in the elections 
might depend upon having a Venizelist chief of 

S36 



THE FIRST ULTIMATUM 

police in office, therefore this also was required. 
The latter point recalls Sir Edward Grey's 
protest to Count Mensdorff against the Austrian 
demands upon the Serbian Government on July 
23, 1914, which were the moving cause of the 
European War. Sir Edward Grey said: 

I have never seen one State address to another inde- 
pendent State a document of so formidable a charac- 
ter. Demand No. 5 would be hardly consistent with 
the maintenance of Serbia's independent sovereignty if 
it were to mean, as it seemed that it might, that Aus- 
tria-Hungary was to be invested with a right to ap- 
point officers who would have authority within the fron- 
tiers of Serbia.-^ 

Quite as effectively as Austria with regard to 
Serbia, the Entente proposed to require the ap- 
pointment of a chief of police. Colonel Zym- 
brakakis, devoted to the interests of Venizelos ; 
and the fourth clause of the ultimatum of June 
21 subsequently proved but a forerunner to a de- 
mand of complete police control made in due 
form and put into execution less than four 
months later. All that Great Britain com- 
plained of in Austria's attitude toward Serbia 
two years previously, Great Britain was now im- 

iSir Edward Grey to Sir M. de Bunsen, July 24, 1914. British 
Blue Book No. 5. 

237 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

posing upon Greece, with a fleet off the Piraeus 
to back her — all, and more besides. 

The ground upon which it is claimed that the 
Entente has a right to intervene in the internal 
affairs of Greece is principally the Treaty of 
London of 1864 between France, Great Britain, 
and Russia on one hand and Greece on the other. 
The treaty is the one by which the Ionian Islands 
were united with Greece. Its first article reads 
in part : 

Greece, within the limits determined by the arrange- 
ment concluded between the three courts and the Otto- 
man Porte, shall form a monarchical State, independent 
and constitutional, under the sovereignty of His Maj- 
esty King George and under the guarantee of the 
Powers. 

The independence of Greece is plainly recog- 
nized; it is difficult to see how a guarantee of 
independence can well abolish it. As for the 
"constitutionality" of Greece, it was after all the 
Greeks themselves who "making use of their 
sovereignty," ^ proclaimed in a decree of the Na- 
tional Hellenic Assembly on March 30, 1863, 
Prince William of Denmark "Constitutional 
King of the Hellenes." ^ The three powers, 

1 Yellow Book 1862, p. 90. 2 Yellow Book, 1863, p. 100. 



THE FIRST ULTIMATUM 

called guarantors, merely recognized in the phras- 
ing of their treaty this exercise of the sovereignty 
residing in the Greek people. Finally, the 
Greek Constitution itself states the matter quite 
clearly : 

"Article XXI. All authorities emanate from 
the nation and are exercised in the manner laid 
down in the Constitution." 

They are not, evidently, exercised in the man- 
ner laid down by the Entente ultimatum of June 
21, 1916. As for the Constitution of 1832, which 
is also invoked to prove the right of the three 
protecting powers to intervene in the internal 
affairs of Greece in behalf of constitutional gov- 
ernment, — though that instrument was duly su- 
perseded in turn by the Constitutions of 1844 and 
1864, and the latter further revised in 1911 with- 
out consulting the protecting powers, — there is a 
certain unconscious irony in any reference to it as 
a charter of democracy for the Hellenic people. 
It was imposed upon the newly freed Greeks by 
Great Britain, France, and Russia. The Greeks 
wanted an instrument far more liberal. As Pro- 
fessor Hayes puts it,^ "the Great Powers, how- 

1 Prof. Carlton J. H. Hayes : "Political and Social History of 
Modem Europe," Vol. II, p. 499. 

239 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

ever, could hardly sanction republicanism and 
nationalism in the case of the Greeks, while at the 
same time liberalism and nationalism were under 
the ban in Europe." 

One further point in respect to this ultimatum 
was raised by Deputy Agamemnon Schlieman, 
in a statement which he gave me at this time. 

How can the foreign naval and military occupation 
of over half of Greece and martial law under foreign 
control throughout Macedonia be taken as constitut- 
ing the normal conditions of the electoral body under 
which there can be the "sincere consultation of the 
national wishes" which the ultimatum itself demands? 
It is as absurd to say that fair elections can be held 
in Greece under these circumstances as to claim that 
elections held in Luxemburg under the heel of Prus- 
sian soldiery could represent the real will of the peo- 
ple of that country. 

Generally speaking, opinion in Athens was less 
opposed to the demands contained in the ulti- 
matum than to the use to which the Entente, and 
particularly the Venizelists, proposed to put 
them. There was still sufficient friendly feeling 
toward the Entente, even in those who objected 
most bitterly to the demands of the ultimatum, 
to concede to the three self-styled "powers guar- 
antors" whatever they desired short of Greece's 
participation in the war or, the equivalent, the 

240 



THE FIRST ULTIMATUM 

imposition of Venizelos as dictator of Greece. 
What aroused the indignation of the Greeks 
was the conviction that the Entente were not im- 
partially supporting constitutional government 
in Greece — constitutional government had never 
been endangered; but that the Entente had a 
definite stake in the game; that the Allies were 
definitely interested in behalf of their man Veni- 
zelos ^ in insisting upon elections at this time, 
and that the interest of the Entente powers 
in the internal administration of Greece did not 
accord with the will of the majority of the coun- 
try, unquestionably opposed to Greece's entry 
into hostilities.^ The repeated declarations of 
the Entente diplomatists that the Allies were not 
seeking to force Greece to leave neutrality were 
held in Greece to be sheer hypocrisy, for home 
consumption, in the face of the Entente's open 
support of Venizelos, whose declared program 
was to join the Greek to the Allied armies. 

1 M. Philippe Secretan, correspondent of the Francophile 
"Gazette de Lausanne": "As a matter of fact, the great Cretan 
[Venizelos] was no stranger to the execution of the Allied man- 
oeuver, whose success it is not impossible may have in large 
measure been due to him." Quoted in "The Entente and Greece," 
Maj. Michael Passaris; p. 75. 

2 See Arnaldo Fraccoroli's statement. Appendix 5. 

241 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Mr. Zaimis took the helm of the Government 
and formed a cabinet in which he placed three 
pronounced Ententists. Colonel Zymbrakakis 
was named chief of police as the Entente desired. 
A general demobilization decree was signed, the 
demobilization to be completed by the end of 
July. The Allied ministers indicated 144 mem- 
bers of the police force of Athens whose dismissal 
they required in order that the Anglo-French 
secret police in Greece, already a formidable or- 
ganization, might be in effective control of the 
policing of the country. On July 3, following 
this earnest of the execution of the Allied de- 
mands, the blockade which had endured almost a 
month, was formally raised, albeit the Allied 
naval control of foodstuffs reaching Greece from 
abroad still kept the people on very short rations. 
American wheat ships bound for Greece were 
held indefinitely at Gibraltar and Malta on one 
excuse or another. Cable orders of food sup- 
plies from the United States were delayed, 
garbled or held by the British censors. Veni- 
zelist ship-owners or importers were favored; the 
opponents of the Cretan were handicapped in 
every activity of foreign trade. 

242 



THE FIRST ULTIMATUM 

Six months previously Venizelos had pro- 
claimed any new elections unconstitutional, stand- 
ing stubbornly on those of June 13, 1915, as the 
only legal expression of the will of the people. 
Two months later he changed this attitude and 
himself stood for oiRce and was elected to a 
Boule, which he still pronounced illegal. Fol- 
lowing the Entente ultimatum, however, he took 
the stand that new elections were entirely con- 
stitutional, even when imposed by an armed de- 
mand of foreign powers, and that still further 
elections must be held. In this complicated 
reasoning, the Entente ministers in Athens fol- 
lowed the Cretan blindly. But one step further 
was necessary to demonstrate the control Veni- 
zelos exercised over the policy of the Entente in 
the near East. When, the last of August, after 
forty days of hard campaigning, the Cretan be- 
came convinced that the people of Greece were 
opposed to his war program, he again shifted 
ground and demanded that the Entente waive 
their requirement of an immediate election, em- 
bodied at his instance in the ultimatum of June 
21. They did so. 

From the moment of Premier Zaimis's prompt 
M5 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

execution of the demands of the Entente ulti- 
matum, all the attention of the Venizelists as well 
as of the Entente was directed to the success of 
Venizelos in the approaching elections. In this 
the French military authorities in Macedonia gave 
Venizelos every assistance, taking active part in 
the campaign under the Cretan's direction. I 
have already quoted parts of several letters from 
Venizelos's supporters and workers to their chief, 
from which the active foreign influence in the elec- 
tions is evident. These Venizelist agents were 
furnished with special military passes by the 
French authorities; they conducted their busi- 
ness in French army automobiles. The Cretan 
police, of whom some two hundred were in the 
service of the Allies, were to be employed, in Mr. 
Eliakis's phrase, "to terrorize the Mussulmans." 
Eliakis writes his chief from Cozani that he had 
traveled with two groups of these bravos bound 
for Fiorina and Vodena. "The chief of the 
French secret service at Vodena accompanied 
them," he informs Venizelos. "He told me that 
he had been transferred with a view to terrorizing 
the Mussulmans of Kharatzova." Pamicos Zym- 
brakakis reports to his chief in the same sense. 

246 



THE FIRST ULTIMATUM 

"Undoubtedly we have need of work," he says, 
"fanatic work, perhaps even terrifying work, to 
coral the Mussuhnans and the Jews." EHakis's 
letters to Venizelos reveal him plotting wholesale 
arrests in cooperation with the French consul and 
assisted by "Cretans of the French police, with na- 
tive guides. Thus the arrests can be easily ef- 
fected by night," he adds. 

Completely protected by the changes in the 
police of Athens demanded by the Entente's ulti- 
matum, the Anglo-French secret police increased 
its numbers of unsavory operatives. There was 
a striking contrast between the Italian and the 
Anglo-French secret police organizations in 
Greece. The former were inconspicuous and effi- 
cient, while the court and police records of 
Athens revealed the latter to include ex-convicts, 
professional gamblers, white- slavers, and individ- 
uals of a class even lower than that usually drawn 
upon for work of this character. In addition 
there were women of loose morals, imported from 
France or Italy, who could be seen nightly in 
the company of the responsible directors of the 
Anglo-French secret police in the best restaurants 

247 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

and theaters of Athens, to the disgust not only 
of the Greeks, but of the respectable British and 
French residents of Greece. At its height this 
work cost the British taxpayer, alone, between 
four and five thousand pounds a month, accord- 
ing to one of the Allied diplomatists in Athens, 
in a position to know the extent and char- 
acter of the operations of this sinister organi- 
zation. While much of the money went into 
jewels and finery for French prostitutes and the 
expenses of joy-riding automobiles, the work of 
the organization itself was conducted in close co- 
operation with the Venizelists, and the whole au- 
thority of its unrestrained power was at the 
disposition of Venizelos for his electoral cam- 
paign. 

Yet it availed very little. Neither General 
Sarrail's Cretan policemen nor the lavish em- 
ployees of the Anglo-French secret police served 
to move the Greek voter, except to a certain ex- 
tent in opposition to, rather than in compliance 
with, the effort made to influence him in favor 
of war. The Greeks are intensely individual, 
passionately independent. External pressure 
only succeeded in driving them closer in their 

248 



THE FIRST ULTIMATUM 

allegiance to their democratic king, further 
away from the politician who was seeking to 
force them by a dictator's means. The process 
of decision was by no means immediate. It 
was some three months before even Venizelos 
realized that his chosen political method of em- 
ploying foreign force and foreign money would 
no more succeed in making the Greeks favor war 
than Baron von Schenck's employment of Ger- 
man money had succeeded in making them favor 
Germany. At bottom, the Greeks were still de- 
voted to France, despite every pressure and an- 
noyance put upon them by the French. But at 
bottom, also, they were still devoted to peace. 

Venizelos's weakness lay in the fact that he tried 
to impose his own enthusiasm for war upon the 
Greek people and to imbue them with his own 
limitless ambition for territorial aggrandizement. 
When he failed he placed the blame upon the 
German propagandists, upon the general staff, 
upon King Constantine, even upon the Entente 
for not supporting him sufficiently. He called 
the Greek sovereign "blinded by prejudice." 
But the strength of Constantine I with the Hel- 
lenic people lay in his own essential democracy, 

249 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

It lay in the fact that while Venizelos was trying 
by every means to force public opinion, King 
Constantine was merely interpreting it, as it had 
crystallized in the minds of the people themselves. 
The people of Greece loved and trusted their sov- 
ereign because he stood for what they stood for. 
They mistrusted Venizelos because he did not. 

And while Venizelos, in the two months follow- 
ing the presentation of the Entente ultimatum 
of June 21, was trying to undermine the king 
and take power into his own hands in Greece, 
King Constantine was once more quietly at work 
on the business of clearing up all the misunder- 
standings, the false springs of action, and the 
stubborn pursuit of an unsuccessful policy that 
had upset every calculation of the Allies in the 
near East, with a view to a frank military cooper- 
ation of Greece with the Entente on a basis of 
mutual self-respect and independence. 

To this end, on July 3, as soon as the details 
of the execution of the terms of the Entente ulti- 
matum had been arranged, he sent his brothers, 
Princes Nicholas and Andrew, to Petrograd and 
London, respectively, on special mission. His 
brother. Prince George, was already in Paris, 

250 



THE FIRST ULTIMATUM 

prepared to work to the same end. It would 
have been difficult to have found three men in 
Greece better equipped for the tasks they had 
in hand. By ties of marriage, friendship, and 
long association, each of the princes was bound 
to the country in which he was to try, in con- 
junction with King Constantine, to clear up 
the whole near Eastern situation to the advan- 
tage of the Entente and of Greece. 



251 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE BULGARIAN INVASION 

On August 17, in compliance with the Allied 
ultimatum of June 21, the Greek staff withdrew 
its troops from eighteen Greek villages between 
the Fiorina- Vodena line and the Serbian frontier, 
to make way for the Serbian forces lately arrived 
in Saloniki. Though General Sarrail had been 
in Saloniki eleven months, neither his force nor 
his equipment was yet in shape for offensive ac- 
tion. He lacked men, mountain transport, and 
mountain artillery. Of the force with which he 
had planned to begin an attack six months previ- 
ously a startling percentage had been invalided 
home with malaria. The French in France, oc- 
cupied still with the defense of Verdun, could 
spare no more men. The increase of activity of 
the German submarines in the Mediterranean had 
so limited the vessels available for transport to 
Macedonia that it was all the Allies could do to 
keep their Macedonian armies provided with food 

252 



THE BULGARIAN INVASION 

and other supplies, much less ship new troops 
and pack mules for mountain transport. 

The Greeks themselves were on short rations 
and could let the Allies have little in the way of 
foodstuffs. The Entente with singular short- 
sightedness had decreed, on August 8, that the 
wheat and flour imported into Greece monthly 
should be limited to 36,000 tons, the corn to 3000, 
sugar to 2000, coal to 25,000, rice to 17,000 tons. 
No coffee was permitted at all. This was not 
enough to feed the Greeks, far less to allow the 
Greeks to sell their surplus to the Allied Orient 
armies. There was, therefore, no possibility of 
an offensive by General Sarrail for the moment. 
But these conditions, created by the Allies them- 
selves always in their pursuit of a political rather 
than a military policy in the near East, in no 
sense prevented the Bulgarians and Germans not 
so much from attacking Saloniki, carefully and 
heavily fortified for defense, but from cutting it 
off on both sides and rendering General Sar- 
rail's position uncomfortable, when not actually 
dangerous. 

The contempt which the Allied military au- 
thorities displayed at this juncture for the Greek 

253 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

staff was their undoing. Instead of amicably 
arranging the time and terms of the Greek demo- 
bihzation, they demanded it in a period requiring 
the most rapid possible action by the Greek staff. 
When, therefore, the Greeks evacuated the eight- 
een villages in the Fiorina- Vodena sector, the 
Serbs were not ready to occupy them, and the 
Bulgarians quietly advanced their lines in a wide 
arc to the west of Saloniki, cutting Sarrail off 
from any possibility of stretching his communi- 
cations westward to join the Italian outposts 
thrust eastward from Valona. 

Meanwhile, both General Moscopoulos and 
Prime Minister Zaimis, the former directly, the 
latter through the Entente legations in Athens, 
called to the attention of the Allies the danger to 
General Sarrail of a hasty withdrawal of the 
Greek troops from eastern Macedonia, and urged 
that Sarrail occupy Drama, Serres, and Cavalla 
as the Greeks retired, or that the Greek demobili- 
zation be postponed until such time as Sarrail 
should be able and ready to take up the positions 
evacuated. The Greek staff instanced the case 
of Fort Rupel as an example of what might hap- 
pen with Serres, Drama, and Cavalla, and drew 

254 



THE BULGARIAN INVASION 

a similar lesson from the Bulgarian occupation 
of the Florina-Vodena sector. 

Neither General Sarrail nor the Allied min- 
isters in Athens would listen to these suggestions. 
The Greeks must get out at once; what hap- 
pened afterwards was the Entente's business. 
On August 20, consequently, the Greek staff 
ordered the three divisions holding the line be- 
low Fort Rupel to retire on Cavalla. The Bul- 
garians followed closely on their heels, taking up 
the abandoned positions. At the same time, the 
Bulgarian right wing, west of Fiorina, now in 
Bulgarian hands, advanced in a broad semi-circu- 
lar swing through Castoria to Cozani, evidently 
with the idea of driving the Serbs and the newly 
arrived Russians back upon Saloniki. 

On August 24, the Allied ministers in Athens, 
alarmed by this Bulgarian advance, asked 
Premier Zaimis how far the Greek Government 
intended to permit it to proceed without resist- 
ance. The prime minister replied that the En- 
tente's ultimatum had demanded a complete 
demobilization of the Greek army. A complete 
demobilization, he pointed out, was scarcely con- 
sonant with an effective resistance to an invasion 

^55 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

of Greece. A complete demobilization had been 
insisted upon. They should have it. 

There is every reason to believe, on the other 
hand, that the Allies anticipated precisely what 
did happen in eastern Macedonia. On Febru- 
ary 5, French Minister Guillemin told me that 
the Entente "relied on King Constantine's dec- 
laration that in case of an attack upon the Allies 
in Macedonia, the Greek troops would be ordered 
to withdraw and leave the combatants a free 
field," as he expressed it. Then M. Guillemin 
was trying to justify the French occupation of 
Fort Karabournou. Now, however, the Entente 
were evidently still relying upon King Constan- 
tine's withdrawal of his troops before the Bul- 
garian advance to have a decisive favorable 
effect on Venizelos's candidacy in the approach- 
ing elections. The feehng in Greece against the 
Bulgarians ran high. A Bulgarian advance into 
the territory Greece had conquered from Tsar 
Ferdinand's soldiers in 1913 could not fail to 
embarrass King Constantine and strengthen 
Venizelos, especially if the latter exploited the 
fact for electoral purposes. He did. The Veni- 
zelist organs raised an immense clamor that the 

256 



THE BULGARIAN INVASION 

Greek staff had sold the country to the Bulgars, 
that King Constantine had a secret agreement 
with Tsar Ferdinand, that Cavalla was to be 
turned over to Bulgaria without the compensa- 
tions which Venizelos had proposed to obtain for 
a similar delivery of Cavalla to Bulgaria twenty 
months previously; and finally, of course, that the 
only way to save Greek soil from being sullied 
by the hated enemy was to return Venizelos to 
power and thus to join Greece to the Entente. 
The fact that the Entente had refused to occupy 
the soil in question was ignored. Nor did any 
of the Venizelists seem in the least disturbed by 
the facility with which the Cretan first proposed 
to cede Cavalla, Drama, and Serres to Bulgaria 
and then went into rages of patriotism over the 
thought that a Bulgarian should ever dare set 
foot in that district. 

To advance the arguments of the Venizelists, 
the Entente ministers in Athens suddenly affected 
a supreme indifference to a Bulgarian occupa- 
tion of Greek eastern Macedonia, Fiorina, and 
Castor ia, claiming that as Saloniki was supplied 
from the sea, a Bulgarian advance could in no 
wise endanger the Allied line of communications. 
. 257 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

The fury with which the Entente press subse- 
quently charged the Greek staff with bad faith in 
permitting the Bulgars to occupy Cavalla is in 
sharp contrast to this purely political stand taken 
by the Entente diplomatists to forward Veni- 
zelos's political game. General Moscopoulos, 
however, pricked the bubble of this contention by 
demonstrating that if the Bulgars' westward 
swing were successful, a few cannon on the slopes 
of Mt. Olympus could close the entrance of the 
Gulf of Saloniki, while the Germano-Bulgarian 
armies would catch General Sarrail and his force 
in a giant pincers whence escape would be cut 
off. 

To add to the Government's embarrassment, 
the Italians landed at Khimarra on the Ionian 
coast, thrusting their line some forty miles into 
Greek territpry, ignoring the formal assurances 
given Greece on February 20 that Italy would 
not violate Greek frontiers. With the average 
Greek, whose parents or friends may have been 
killed in the Bulgarian massacres at Doxato dur- 
ing the Balkan wars, Bulgaria is the great press- 
ing danger hung over Greece. Upon this feeling 
Venizelos was playing in his campaign. But to 

258 



THE BULGARIAN INVASION 

the thoughtful Greek, not Bulgaria, but Italy 
was and is the great peril, especially since the 
secret agreement of Italy with the Entente, on 
April 25, 1915, preceding Italy's entry into the 
war. The first landing of Italian troops on 
Corfu raised a storm of public feeling in Greece, 
beside which the opinion created by the French 
seizure of the island was dwarfed. To this act, 
the Skouloudis cabinet had replied by seating in 
the Boule the representatives from that part of 
Epirus still in dispute with Italy. Now, Italy 
countered by landing her soldiers on Greek soil, 
protected from reprisals by the Allied ultimatum 
of June 21, requiring the demobilization of the 
Greek army. 

Once the leader of the anti-Italian party in 
Greece, Venizelos now held his peace as to their 
encroachments; now the leader of the anti-Bul- 
garian party in Greece, he forgot his effort 
twenty months before to cede part of Greece to 
Bulgaria. This equivocal policy failed to take 
with the Greek public, despite every effort of the 
Entente diplomatists to forward it, every activity 
of the Entente-subsidized newspapers to carry it 
through ; despite, also, the cooperation with Gen- 

^9 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

eral Sarrail's officers of the Venizelist electoral 
workers and the Cretan police in French pay 
and the money spent and the pressure exer- 
cised by the Anglo-French secret police. It was 
evident the Venizelists were not sweeping the 
country with their pro-war propaganda, as had 
been expected. Both the Venizelists and the 
Entente ministers in Athens were in despair. 
The Cretan's campaign for war was not advanc- 
ing, and it was useless to close one's eyes to the 
fact. 'New means to make it successful must be 
found without delay. Venizelos, therefore, set 
about devising that plot which, as his friend 
Pamicos Zymbrakakis had written a fortnight 
before. General Sarrail was ready to forward. 

Meanwhile, King Constantine was engaged on 
more far-reaching matters. On July 30 I had 
telegraphed, on information given me by King 
Constantine himself, that Rumania would enter 
the war on the side of the Entente before a month 
was out. A week later, certain of the Allied min- 
isters in Athens confirmed this forecast. It was 
with precisely this in view that the Greek mon- 
arch had sent his brothers to England and Russia 
— that they might arrange a cooperation between 

260 



THE BULGARIAN INVASION 

Greece and Rumania, on the latter's entry into 
the war, by which the two armies could attack 
Bulgaria from both sides and pierce the German 
line to Constantinople. Even more keenly now 
than the preceding February the king realized 
that it would be a difficult matter to swing the 
people of Greece to war, while Venizelos con- 
tinued to clamor for war as a political slogan 
rather than as a well considered plan of national 
action. He knew that when war was declared, 
if the arrangement were successful, the Veni- 
zelists would cry victory and that those opposed 
to Venizelos's political ambitions would be in- 
clined to hold back on this account. Once more, 
therefore, he set patiently about to mend the 
breaks in public sentiment which the Entente 
ultimatum of June 21 had created. 

Now, however, the task was more difficult than 
it had been six months previous. Again he called 
General Moscopoulos to Athens to convince the 
staff and the officers of the army that successful 
cooperation with General Sarr ail's force was still 
a possibility. He attended General Manoussoy- 
annakis's funeral, at Patras, in person, and 
aroused a great wave of patriotic enthusiasm. 

261 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Because the Entente had conceived a mistrust of 
General Dousmanis, chief of the Greek general 
staff, and Colonel Metaxas, the ablest tactician of 
the Greek army, King Constantine voluntarily 
granted the former leave of absence and changed 
the latter's post so that neither remained in a di- 
recting position in the Greek staff. More, he re- 
placed General Dousmanis by General Mosco- 
poulos, an ardent Ententist who, as head of the 
third army corps at Saloniki, had been on the 
closest terms of amity and cooperation with Gen- 
eral Sarrail. Everything was being done to put 
the Greek military organization in shape to work 
with the Allied armies. When General Dous- 
manis left his office as chief of staff, he turned 
over to his successor the series of plans, brought 
up to the minute, for Greece's active cooperation 
with the Allied armies upon which he had worked 
since the outbreak of the European War, that 
Greece might be ready at a moment's notice to 
work effectively with the Entente. 

The principal instrument upon which King 
Constantine counted to secure a large contingent 
of soldiers at the first remobilization call, how- 
ever, was the national organization known as the 

262 



THE BULGARIAN INVASION 

"League of Reservists," formed after the Balkan 
wars among their veterans, to look after the 
families of such of the soldiers as had lost their 
lives in these wars; to assist needy comrades to 
secure work ; to maintain them while incapacitated 
and bury them suitably when they died. As 
there are no pensions in Greece, the organization 
was a useful adjunct to the military establish- 
ment. During the ten months of mobilized in- 
activity the League of Reservists had grown in, 
extent and strength by assisting the families of 
mobilized men who had not the means to support 
their families on the cent a day paid the Greek 
common soldier in the service of his country. 
After demobilization King Constantine, as hon- 
orary president of the league, encouraged its 
work with a view to using it to inspire a sentiment 
for war when the moment should come that 
Greece's entry into the war could be made with 
a reasonable promise of a successful issue. To 
this end, also, he even planned a sort of swing 
around the circle in all the leading cities of 
Greece to urge a full response to mobilization 
orders should they come. He was only pre- 
vented from carrying out the plan by a re- 

263 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

opening of the sinus in his back, which had 
troubled him since the spring of 1915. 

All of this was deadly business for one of King 
Constantine's temperament, used to the simpler 
method of command. I find him admirable in it, 
displaying the scrupulous patience of the impa- 
tient man with astonishing skill and effectiveness. 
Never once did he lose that sense of humor for 
which he is remarkable, or his cheerful confi- 
dence in the eventual success of his plan. Veni- 
zelos charges him with stepping down from his 
throne to lead a political party. Perhaps this is 
true. It is certain that to accompHsh the end he 
had in view — the conservation of what he believed 
the vital interest of his country — King Constan- 
tine would not have hesitated not only to step 
down from his throne, but to renounce his crown 
entirely, if need were. 

Both Princes Nicholas and Andrew have in- 
formed me that their reception by the Entente 
authorities in Petrograd and London was in the 
nature of that accorded to Mr. Britling when he 
desired to volunteer his services to his country 
after the Battle of the Marne. King Constan- 
tine's offer was regarded with suspicion. Prince 

264 




ANDREW, PRINCE OF GREECE 



THE BULGARIAN INVASION 

Andrew, in London, was lectured like a school- 
boy on what the Greek sovereign ought and ought 
not to do by a high permanent official of the 
Foreign Office, who had never been in the near 
East and knew nothing of the situation in Greece 
save what he had learned from interested Veni- 
zelist sources. In Russia, Prince Nicholas fared 
better, as the Imperial Government, still playing 
to secure an open Dardanelles, instead of hav- 
ing the straits closed by British guns on Imbros, 
Tenedos, and Lemnos, had need of Greece to 
carry out that plan. In general, however, the 
negotiations were quite as unsatisfactory as 
Serbia's negotiations with her Allies for permis- 
sion, in September, 1915, to fall upon Bulgaria 
before Bulgarian mobilization could be com- 
pleted. There seemed to be no tendency to base 
a large scheme of decisive military operations 
upon Rumania's entry into hostilities. Rumania 
was to come in and carry out her own plans of 
conquest haphazard, without regard to the pos- 
sibilities of coordinated military action. 

Meanwhile, the Bulgarian advance toward Ca- 
valla continued, the Greeks withdrawing upon 
the city, transporting their own war material 

267 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

with them. On August 26, despite the written 
assurance given by the Central empires that 
the Greek cities of Drama, Serres, and Cavalla 
would not be occupied, the former two were en- 
tered by Bulgarian troops, and the Bulgars, seiz- 
ing heights around Cavalla, were in position to 
take possession of that city whenever they liked. 
This advance of the Bulgars came most appropri- 
ately for the Venizelists. His followers had 
planned a mass meeting to take place in Athens 
the following day, the anniversary of the revolu- 
tion of 1909, with the idea of reminding the 
Greek sovereign of the events of seven years be- 
fore, and in a certain sense as a threat of what 
Venizelos could do if he chose. The meeting had 
been widely advertised and well prepared. It 
was attended by an immense crowd, which as- 
sembled under the windows of the house recently 
purchased by the Cretan in Athens' leading resi- 
dential street. 

The mass meeting was to be a test of the results 
achieved by Venizelos's electoral campaign for the 
past six weeks, a trying out of the strength of 
the Venizelist war party. As such, it showed the 
Cretan very strong indeed, probably 40,000 men 

268 



THE BULGARIAN INVASION 

gathering in the streets surrounding his residence. 
But it also revealed that there was by no means 
that unanimity for war which the Venizelists had 
led the Entente to believe would be the effect of 
the Cretan's campaign. In his speech, carefully 
prepared in advance and read from the written 
text, Venizelos seemed throughout to be prepar- 
ing the way for another revolution like that of 
1909. In the form of an address direct to the 
monarch, to be adopted as a resolution and pre- 
sented by a committee of the meeting to King Con- 
stantine, Venizelos publicly tells his sovereign: 

You are the prey of advisers of a purely military 
outlook and of oligarchical ideas, who have persuaded 
you that Germany must be victorious and who, trading 
upon your admiration of the Germans whose victory 
you believe in and have desired, hope by Germany's vic- 
tory to be able to set aside the liberal constitution of 
Greece and to concentrate in the royal hands the power 
of absolutism. As a result of these warped ideas, in- 
stead of an extension of the territory of Greece to Asia 
Minor, Thrace and Cyprus, we see to-day Macedonia 
invaded by the Bulgars, military supplies worth tens 
of thousands of dollars surrendered to the invaders, 
and north Epirus in danger of being permanently lost. 
We, the people, by this demonstration, declare that we 
disapprove the course recently followed, and insist 
upon the dismissal from around the king's person of 
his present sinister advisers. The interjection of the 
king's name into the electoral contest constitutes an 

269 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

internal revolution against the liberal party. The na- 
tional unity has been destroyed by thrusting the royal 
prestige into politics. 

Each statement was a cry from the heart for 
the Venizelists, astutely conceived to place the 
sovereign in the wrong. King Constantine had 
believed, not in the victory of the Germans, but 
at most that the war would result in a draw, as he 
had declared to me on December 4, 1915. In 
speaking to General de Castelnau on December 
26, he had gone further and said that while he be- 
lieved it impossible to defeat the German army 
militarily, he could readily understand the defeat 
of Germany by the economic and financial pres- 
sure of the Allies. As for Thrace and Asia 
Minor, neither had yet been conquered by the 
Allies; nor had Venizelos himself as prime min- 
ister been able to secure any definite assurance 
of tangible concessions in these fields. The "sin- 
ister advisers" to whom the Cretan referred were 
General Dousmanis, Venizelos's own choice as 
chief of the general staiF, and Colonel Metaxas, 
both of whom the king had already relieved of 
staff service. Dr. George Streit was probably 
also meant, a distinguished international jurist, 

270 



THE BULGARIAN INVASION 

member for Greece of the International Court of 
Arbitration, who had been Venizelos's minister 
for foreign affairs when the European War broke 
out. He held no public office at the moment, 
and was merely a childhood friend of King Con- 
stantine, and a devoted patriot. In fine, the only- 
advisers whom Venizelos considered proper about 
the Greek sovereign were his own followers. 
Premier Zaimis, in his own phrase, he "tolerated." 

As for the interjection of the King's person- 
ality into the electoral campaign, it is considered 
in Greece, not without reason, that Venizelos's 
publication of his two memoranda to his sover- 
eign, of January 11 and 17, 1915, had been the 
first interjection of the personality of the king 
into Greek politics. At the moment of Veni- 
zelos's speaking. King Constantine was engaged 
solely in the business, his as constitutional com- 
mander-in-chief of the army, of seeking to hold 
the army ready, even in demobilization, for in- 
stant action on the side of the Entente should 
Rumania enter the war. 

The most striking inconsistency of Venizelos's 
attitude at this juncture was revealed in the dec- 
laration which he made me for publication just 

271 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

before his speech to the crowd under his bal- 
cony. 

"Can you conceive," he said to me, speaking of 
the Bulgarian advance on Cavalla, "anything 
more criminal militarily than the action of the 
general staff in demobilizing three army corps 
and leaving their entire artillery and other sup- 
plies behind to fall into the hands of the Bul- 
garians!" In view, however, of the fact that it 
was precisely the Entente, in close cooperation 
with Venizelos himself, who demanded not only 
the demobilization of the three army corps in 
question, but their demobilization in so brief a 
delay that any considerable transport of war ma- 
terial was impossible, Venizelos's statement ap- 
pears extraordinary, to say the least. 

The conclusion of the Cretan's address was 
equally significant. In the first place, as leader 
of one of the political parties of Greece, he for- 
mally recognized the Zaimis cabinet as a cabinet 
of full powers, not the purely business cabinet 
upon which the Entente ultimatum of June 21 
had insisted. In the second place, after attack- 
ing the Greek sovereign in the most open fashion, 
charging him with sympathy for the Central em- 

272 



THE BULGARIAN INVASION 

pires, and implying that the monarch's course 
was intended to nullify the Constitution and turn 
Greece into a despotism, he seemed to lack the 
assurance of sufficient* strength to go further and 
inspire revolutionary action among his hearers, 
without the material aid of Entente bayonets to 
back him. 

The reason for this strange inconclusion to the 
Cretan's otherwise inflammatory address lay in a 
circumstance of which few were cognizant at the 
moment.^ Venizelos had arranged with Captain 
de Roquefeuille, the French naval attache and 
head of the French secret police, for a fleet of 
some thirty odd French and British ships of 
war to appear off the Piraeus simultaneously with 
the meeting in Athens of August 27. It was ex- 
pected that, in the consternation so formidable a 
demonstration of Allied naval forces must in- 
evitably produce in the minds of the Govern- 
ment and the opponents of Venizelos, the latter, 
with his followers already in mass beneath his 

1 "Everywhere the Venizelists can be seen working furiously to 
bring about an uprising. They are distributing arms and money, 
and in certain houses of Athens they are installing machine guns. 
The police watch this go on but dare not interfere." Major 
Michael Passaris, "L'Entente et la Grece," p. 82. 

273 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

balcony, would have only to suggest a march to 
the palace to repeat the coup d'etat of 1909 and 
impose his will upon his sovereign. Under the 
guns of the Allied squadron, resistance would 
scarcely be attempted, and with one bold stroke 
Greece could thus suddenly be swung into line 
with the Entente. 

Certainly Venizelos himself had all the nervous- 
ness of a man planning a critical step during the 
hour I spent with him just preceding his speech. 
The air was charged with possibilities which every 
one present felt were not materiahzing. 

"If we, the people," Venizelos concluded his 
speech, " are not heard in these our resolutions — 
we shall be forced to take counsel as to what it 
is best to do to minimize the ruin which awaits 
us." ^ 

It was late in the evening. The Allied fleet 
had not arrived. Had Venizelos believed for a 
moment that he really expressed the views of the 

1 The text of the portions of Venizelos' speech here given is a 
translation of a summary furnished the foreign press by his 
secretary, during its delivery, which I checked up with Mr. 
Venizelos himself. A Greek text with English translation was 
subsequently published by The Anglo-Hellenic League, in which 
very considerable alterations had been made from the address 
as pronounced. 

274 



THE BULGARIAN INVASION 

majority of the Greek people, or even of the ma- 
jority of the people of Athens, the arrival of the 
Allied squadron would not have been necessary 
to the success of vrhatever plan he had in mind. 
As in 1909, the crowd would have marched to 
the palace and King Constantine would have 
been forced to yield as his father, seven years be- 
fore, had been forced to yield. But, as Profes- 
sor Hayes has said,^ "the son who succeeded 
King George was adored by the nation as the 
successful leader of the Greek army in the Balkan 
war." Without other support than his own fol- 
lowers, Venizelos was forced to end his address 
in anticlimax. Disappointed, puzzled, uncer- 
tain as to what it was expected to do, the crowd 
before the Cretan's house dispersed no wiser than 
it had come. 

iProf. Carlton J. H. Hayes: "Political and Social History 
of Modern Europe," Vol. II, p. 517. 



276 



CHAPTER XVII 

"the warrior king unsheathes his sword" 

The day following Venizelos's speech to the 
people of Athens, Rumania's entry into the war 
was known in Greece. The anti-Venizehsts ac- 
cepted the challenge of the Venizelist meeting, 
so long announced and so well prepared, and at 
the last moment decided to give a counter demon- 
stration the following afternoon. Handicapped 
by lack of funds, divided among themselves, out 
of spirit with the prevailing feeling of the mo- 
ment when Rumania's abandonment of neutrality 
was announced, it was generally supposed that 
the loyalist demonstration would amount to very 
little. The speakers were not popular orators, 
as is Venizelos, used to swaying vast assemblages. 
There was no special inducement for an audi- 
ence to congregate — save the name of the king. 
Venizelos had attacked the houmharos, as the 
Greek soldier calls his sovereign. The Greeks 
who had fought under the "koumbaros" must 

276 



WARRIOR KING UNSHEATHES HIS SWORD 

show the world that they still followed his leader- 
ship, no less for peace than for war. 

To those of us who still believed Venizelos the 
dominating political factor in Greece, the meet- 
ing of August 28, 1916, was an eye-opener. It 
seemed incredible that so many thousands of en- 
thusiastic men should fill the street in front of 
Minister Rhallys's house and stand for hours 
while the aged ex-premier discoursed in a voice 
that could not be heard a dozen yards. Virtually 
every man a reservist, when they marched down 
Stadium Street to the demonstration they fell 
naturally into line and stepped out with the swing 
of soldiers, chanting the "Aitos," ^ the spirited 
words of which, "the warrior king unsheathes his 
sword," seemed strangely out of keeping with 
the ostensible purpose of the meeting. In this 
gathering an element was present which the Veni- 
zelist meeting had lacked — the small farmers of 
Attica and Boeotia, in their gray smocks dusty 
from the road ; they had walked into town, start- 
ing before daybreak in order not to miss the dem- 
onstration. While the Venizelists were celebrat- 
ing the anniversary of the revolution of 1909, this 

1 "Ho Aitos" — The Eagle, referring to the double-headed eagle 
of Byzance. 

277 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

second crowd celebrated nothing but their de- 
votion to the soldier-sovereign. The "Chronos," 
a newspaper catering principally to the reservists, 
published that morning a picture of King Con- 
stantine. Many of the demonstrators cut the 
picture out and pinned it on their coats as a 
symbol, almost as an icon, to show their feeling. 
If the Venizelist meeting had included 40,000 
men, this second meeting was scarcely less vast, 
and had been gathered within a few hours. Had 
there been any doubt in the mind of King Con- 
stantine that the reservists of Greece would rush 
to the colors at his call, the meeting of August 
28 dispelled it. His fear that the bitter Veni- 
zelist campaign had split the fighting forces of 
Greece into two opposing camps, and thus had 
impaired the strength of the army needed should 
Greece go to war, disappeared in an instant. 
The two meetings did more, however. In his 
speech from his balcony, Venizelos had said of the 
Zaimis business cabinet: "The Liberal party are 
prepared to invest this cabinet of affairs with 
their own political authority." In other words, 
by accepting the Zaimis government as endowed 
with political responsibility, despite the Entente 

278 



WARRIOR KING UNSHEATHES HIS SWORD 

ultimatum of June 21, Venizelos made it possible 
for Premier Zaimis to undertake the responsi- 
bility of conducting war, should the anti-Veni- 
zelists also consent. Only the acquiescence of 
the Allies was further necessary, since it had been 
by their demand that the Government of Greece 
under Premier Za'imis had been deprived of its 
constitutional functions. In this sense, there- 
fore, the two meetings admirably served the pur- 
pose of King Constantine, whose preparations 
to undertake a Balkan campaign in conjunction 
with Rumania were now completed. 

In another respect also the significance of the 
two meetings was immense. The second meet- 
ing in particular demonstrated not only to the 
Venizelists, but to the Allied ministers in Athens, 
that five weeks of hard campaigning by the Veni- 
zelists had accomplished little or nothing; that 
the political method the Cretan had employed of 
attacking his sovereign had only increased the 
strength of the king. Had there been any cool 
head directing the Entente policy in the near 
East, now was plainly the moment for a complete 
change of front. It was evident that if Venizelos 
could not carry overwhelmingly an industrial 

279 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

center like Athens, he must be defeated in the 
rural districts of old Greece, always conserva- 
tive. For myself, I may say frankly that up to 
this hour I had believed Venizelos the strongest 
man in Greece, certain to carry the approaching 
elections by an appreciable majority. Nor was 
it easy for me to admit the error of this judg- 
ment. But the demonstration of August 28 
would have convinced a blind man. From that 
moment I realized that, whether wisely or un- 
wisely, Venizelos had misplayed his cards. The 
Venizelist policy was doomed ; unless King Con- 
stantine could succeed in reaching an agreement 
with the Entente, Greece would never range her- 
self on the side of the Allies. 

It was with this in mind that, after the loyalist 
meeting, I had a long conversation with Sir 
Francis Elliot. I knew that the king's only re- 
luctance to joining the Allies at this juncture 
was based on uncertainty as to whether at this 
moment he could obtain a full military showing 
by a call of the Greeks to the colors. It seemed 
to me that the meeting of August 28 had def- 
initely disposed of this objection. I knew, more- 
over, that King Constantine had worked long and 

280 



WARRIOR KING UNSHEATHES HIS SWORD 

carefully with the idea of Greece's entry into the 
war in conjunction with Rumania. The moment 
had arrived. It is true that the negotiations of 
Princes George and Andrew had not proceeded 
very successfully and that Rumania, instead of 
projecting an attack on Bulgaria in cooperation 
with Greece, had begun an offensive in the op- 
posite direction, attacking Austria-Hungary in 
Transylvania. Nothing of this situation, how- 
ever, was irreparable; a shift of front could be 
effected very readily the moment Greece's entry 
into the war was decided. Prince Nicholas, who 
had succeeded somewhat better with the Russian 
Government than his brothers with the French 
and British cabinets, was ready to leave Petro- 
grad at once for Bukharest with this purpose. It 
seemed worth while, therefore, for the Entente 
to attempt a final understanding with King Con- 
stantine, and for King Constantine to accept by 
far the best chance that had yet been offered him 
of a successful campaign in the Balkans. These 
considerations I laid before the British minister. 
He agreed, albeit he had little hope King Con- 
stantine would change his attitude. I asked 
about a guarantee of the integrity of Greece. 

281 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Sir Francis Elliot said that he felt sure the Allied 
governments would now make no difficulties on 
that score. 

The same evening I motored to Tatoy, where 
I saw Mr. Zaimis, the prime minister. Al- 
ways an Ententist, he agreed that the moment 
had come to strike. The king had just been 
operated upon again in the sinus in his back, and 
the doctors forbade any one seeing him that eve- 
ning. I, therefore, wrote King Constantine a 
personal letter which it would scarcely be proper 
for me to reproduce without permission, but in 
which I tried to convey my own conviction that 
an understanding between Greece and the En- 
tente was a practical possibihty. The following 
day, still suffering from the operation but as 
keen as ever, he received me. We talked the 
matter over thoroughly. He said quite frankly 
that he had sent his brothers to London and 
Petrograd to try to accomplish some more effec- 
tive cooperation with the Allied governments 
than seemed possible through a local diplomatic 
representation, evidently more devoted to for- 
warding the interests of a single political faction 

282 



WARRIOR KING UNSHEATHES HIS SWORD 

in Greece than to advancing the mihtary situa- 
tion of the Alhes in the near East. 

"You know as well as anybody," he said, "for 
I have told you so many times, that there has 
never been any question that Greece would not 
make war could she see her definite, certain advan- 
tage in doing so. To say that I am pledged not 
to make war is nonsense. Only one thing has 
ever moved me: that has been the good of my 
country. And up to now, the situation has not 
revealed a sufficient certainty of advantage to 
be gained by Greece, to compensate for the risks 
and unquestionable cost in lives and property 
bound to follow our entry into the war." He 
went on to explain that it was by no means ad- 
vantage in the way of territorial aggrandize- 
ment to which he had reference — Greece could 
not be bribed to go to war — but advantage in the 
shape of such military dispositions on the part of 
the Entente as would create a reasonable chance 
of success in the Balkans in favor of the Allied 
powers, including Greece. Simply to join the 
Allies for moral effect and to accomplish nothing 
by it, he declared, would not assist, but handicap 

282 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

the Entente, and would bring a definite loss to 
Greece, uncompensated by a corresponding im- 
provement in the position of the Greeks, in Greece 
or anywhere else. 

"Take one element of the situation, for ex- 
ample," he went on — "an element of which no one 
seems to think at all. There are in the Otto- 
man Empire over a million women and children, 
as well as men, of our blood, whose lives would 
not be worth a moment's purchase the day Greece 
decided to join the Allies. It is not at all the 
simple choice for us that it was for Rumania. 
Every phase must be weighed most carefully. 
Undoubtedly the presence of Bulgars on Greek 
territory and Rumania's entry into the war 
greatly complicate the situation. These can be 
regarded as new elements which may alter the 
premises upon which Greece's policy has hitherto 
been based — and, I am convinced, reasonably 
based. I do not say that this is not the case. 
But I do say that whoever would not be most 
unjust toward Greece must understand that there 
are more elements to be considered in our case 
than are generally thought of — or even than are 
generally known." More than this as to his fu- 

284j 



WARRIOR KING UNSHEATHES HIS SWORD 

ture action King Constantine would not give out 
for publication at the time. But personally he 
agreed heartily that the moment had come for 
action, and he expressed his readiness to take the 
initiative. 

Upon one point, however, he was very decided 
indeed. "There is to be no bargaining Greece 
awa}^ to anybody, either now or at the peace 
conference," he said. "There is to be no parti- 
tion ofmy country — I won't have it ! I make no 
other condition whatsoever, but I want that one 
thing plainly understood. The integrity of 
Greece has got to be guaranteed. Tell your En- 
tente friends that. Under the Constitution I am 
responsible for declaring war. I shall not take 
that responsibility without an assurance that we 
shall not lose even in victory." 

I told him that I had every reason to believe 
that this guarantee would be given. 

"All right," he replied. "I am not quite so 
sure, myself ; but I shall take your word for it that 
you know. Now how do you think it had better 
be done?" he asked. "Through my brothers in 
Paris, London, and Petrograd — or through one 
of the Entente ministers here?" 

285 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

To me it seemed better that the proposal of the 
military cooperation of Greece be made as for- 
mally as possible. I told him so. The king was 
of the same opinion, especially since his brothers 
had had rather a cold reception on their mission 
abroad. 

"Very well," King Constantine said, finally. 
"Will you tell Elliot to ask for an audience at 
once ? He 's the dean of the Entente diploma- 
tists, and it had better be done through him. Be- 
sides," he laughed in his kindly way, "it will be a 
diplomatic feather in his cap — and he has been 
here a long time, and deserves it. We '11 give 
him the credit." 

As I was leaving, the king referred again to 
his one essential condition of the integrity of 
Greece, and to his constitutional mandate to de- 
clare war, if war were to be declared. "It is not 
a question of my deciding what we ought to do 
under the circumstances as they are to-day," he 
said very seriously. "It is a question for all the 
Greeks — in Thrace and Asia Minor as well as in 
Greece itself — to reach a decision upon, after 
maturely weighing the frightful price that must 
be paid in the event of war. In such a crisis," 

S86 



WARRIOR KING UNSHEATHES HIS SWORD 

he concluded, "we want the voice of the soul of 
Hellas to dictate the future of our race." 

I returned to Sir Francis Elliot at once. He 
was delighted, but still somewhat skeptical. I 
conveyed to him the king's insistance on a guar- 
antee of the integrity of Greece as an essential 
condition. "That will be all right, I am sm'e," he 
said. "But do you believe he will do it?" he 
asked. 

"Yes," I replied, "I do." 

Sir Francis sighed. 

"It will add ten years to my life if he does," he 
said. 

We talked of the possible governmental 
changes necessary to the constitution of a cabinet 
for war. Sir Francis urging that the king call 
Venizelos to power. I told him frankly that I 
thought there was little chance of that, but that 
I believed the king would accept a cabinet with 
a minority representation of Venizelists, includ- 
ing the Cretan himself if Venizelos could 
bring himself to accept a minor post. There was 
talk of Nicholas Caloguyeropoulos as a war 
premier — an Ententist long a resident of France. 
But all of this was more or less discussion. That 

287 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

night, also, I told Mr. Droppers, the American 
minister, precisely what was on foot, for the in- 
formation of the Government of the United 
States. I learned later that Mr. Droppers went 
at once to Mr. Venizelos with the whole story. 

The British minister's audience was fixed for 
September 1 ; M. Guillemin, the French minister, 
saw the Greek sovereign August 31, the day fol- 
lowing my own conversation with the king. 
Their talk did not forward matters. M. Guille- 
min always irritated King Constantine who, 
suffering now from his operation, was inclined to 
dislike more than ever the French minister's 
labored subtleties. Sir Francis was to be re- 
ceived at eleven o'clock Friday morning, the 
first. To be certain, I went to Tatoy myself at 
half-past nine and remained with the king until 
the British minister was announced. The king 
was not only unchanged, but himself had worked 
out a tentative cabinet shift, and set his staff to 
estimating what would be required to equip the 
Greek army in the shortest possible time. He 
wanted Mr. Zaimis to remain as premier if pos- 
sible ; but in case he would not accept the respon- 
sibility, the King was considering a purely war 

288 



WARRIOR KING UNSHEATHES HIS SWORD 

cabinet under Admiral Coundouriotis or General 
Moscopoulos. At my question about a Venize- 
list representation, he replied that he expected 
Venizelos would, as a minority leader, accept 
a share in the responsibility of conducting the 
war, and either himself sit in the cabinet or 
permit three of his friends to represent him in 
it. 

"He must take his part of the responsibility 
for this business," the king said. "It will not do 
to have his crowd standing out, trying to break 
up the army and making things difficult by 
criticizing the Government. He has been cry- 
ing for war for the past year ; now we are to have 
it, he must put his shoulder to the wheel with the 
rest and help out." 

When Colonel Levidis announced the British 
minister, I said to the king : 

"Your Majesty will broach the subject, of 
course — otherwise Sir Francis will talk about the 
weather. I have no official capacity, and so he 
is n't supposed to know anything through me. 
I 'm just a butter-in." 

"I understand," the king replied, laughing. 
"It will be all right. How about the integrity of 

289 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Greece?" he called after me, as I was going out 
the door. 

"Sir Francis says he is sure there will be no 
difficulty," I replied. 

On the way out I passed the British minister. 
He interrogated me with a glance. I nodded. 
His face lit up with satisfaction. 

An hour later I saw him at the British lega- 
tion. 

"I come as a journalist," I said, "to learn if 
you have anything to say about your audience 
with King Const antine this morning." 

"Nothing for publication," he said, smiling. 

At that moment the head of the British secret 
pohce ran up the stairs two steps at a time, evi- 
dently greatly excited. 

"The French fleet has arrived off the Piraeus," 
he cried. 

Sir Francis Elliot went a dead white. He 
turned and walked slowly up the stairway with- 
out a word. 

Once more Elephtherios Venizelos had played 
his trump at the right moment for his own game 
— and the wrong one for the Entente. 



290 



PART III 
STARVATION 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE SECOND ULTIMATUM 

Feom the hour of the arrival of the Allied 
fleet under Admiral Dartige du Fournet off the 
Pirseus, on September 1, 1916, the history of 
Greece moves with the rapidity of a cinemato- 
graph reel. The implied menace of so formid- 
able a naval display, even had it not been known 
to have been planned in conjunction with an 
attempt at revolution within the country, would 
have been sufficient to put an end to any further 
negotiations between Greece and the Entente 
for the latter's participation in the war. To 
the Greeks, readily led, but hardly driven, a 
military cooperation, spontaneously conceived 
before the fleet arrived, became well-nigh impos- 
sible under the threat of the French admiral's 
cannon. 

It is my conviction that the British minister 
was not party to this latest blunder of the En- 
tente in the near East; but it was exceedingly 

293 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

difficult to persuade King Constantine that be- 
tween my conversation with him on August 29, 
and his audience with Sir Francis Elhot on Sep- 
tember 1, the latter had not quietly sent for the 
fleet with a view to upsetting the sovereign's plan 
of joining the Allies, by aiding a Venizelist cowp 
d'etat. This suspicion was further strengthened 
by the revolt of certain officers, including the 
commander, of the Greek 11th Division stationed 
at Saloniki. While only a small proportion of 
the command deserted the Greek flag to accept 
foreign pay on August 30, the fact that General 
Sarrail had actively assisted the revolt, received 
into his forces the deserting officers and men, and 
caused the imprisonment of 176 who were un- 
willing to join in a seditious movement, left a very 
sore feeling toward the French general among 
the Greeks, especially among the very officers 
who would be called upon to fight under his su- 
preme command in case Greece joined the Allies. 
The movement in Saloniki was led by Veni- 
zelists, as part of the general uprising which had 
been planned for August 27, but which had failed 
to materialize when the Allied squadron did not 
appear. It constituted, of course, a direct blow 

294 



THE SECOND ULTIMATUM 

at King Constantine's hold over his soldiers, as 
their commander-in-chief. It was calculated to 
overturn the entire discipline of the Greek army, 
thus demonstrating to the Entente that the Greek 
monarch's proffered military cooperation was of 
doubtful value — unless brought about by Veni- 
zelos. Its failure should have demonstrated the 
contrary. 

To those of the British and French legations 
in Athens who were acquainted in advance with 
the arrival of Admiral Dartige du Fournet's 
fleet, an entirely different mission for the Allied 
warships had been played up by the Cretan and 
his followers. A campaign in France and Eng- 
land had long been in progress against Baron 
Adolf von Schenck zu Schweinsberg, the head of 
the German propaganda in Greece. Rather an 
insignificant figure in fact, the baron had been 
raised to a pinnacle of diabolical cunning and al- 
most superhuman influence by the more sensa- 
tional British and French newspapers. The 
ground thus prepared at home for drastic action 
against the German agents in Greece, it was com- 
paratively simple for Venizelos to suggest the 
sending of a strong naval force to Salamis in 

295 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

order that, under the protection of its guns, the 
Anglo-French secret poHce might proceed in 
safety to the forcible seizure and deportation 
from neutral soil, not only of Schenck and his 
particular band of German agents, but also of 
every Greek whose activity Venizelos found in- 
imical to his political campaign. 

It is characteristic of the political astigmatism 
of the British and French representatives in 
Athens, and indeed of Venizelos himself, that so 
much importance could be predicated to the ac- 
tivities of the German propagandists in Greece. 
As a matter of fact, in Greece even more than in 
the United States, the German method of pro- 
cedure had succeeded actually in alienating rather 
than acquiring sympathy for the Central em- 
pires. Similarly, however, the out-Germaning 
of the Germans by the Anglo-French secret po- 
lice had a like result, the greater in extent because 
at this juncture the latter organization was now 
plainly so much stronger, more widely extended, 
and more lavishly supplied with funds than 
Schenck's had been. On the whole, the heads of 
the Anglo-French secret police in Greece seem 
to have been singularly naive, nibbling the bait of 

296 



THE SECOND ULTIMATUM 

personal notoriety held out to them by the Veni- 
zelists, and blindly playing the Cretan's game to 
the prejudice of the greater stake for the entire 
cause of the Entente, the active cooperation of 
Greece with the Allies, carrying with it a force 
of 250,000 trained men to be added to the Allied 
Orient armies. The diplomacy of two years 
went by the board at this crisis, that the head of 
the British secret police might have what he 
termed "the best time of his life." 

No time was lost after the arrival of the Allied 
squadron in putting this program into execution. 
The same night, the French flag was hoisted on 
the four German and three Austrian merchant- 
men interned since the beginning of the war in the 
neutral waters of Keratsina Bay, and the officers 
and men aboard them were arrested and taken to 
one of the Allied warships as prisoners. At the 
same time, officers of the Allied squadron took 
possession of the Greek Government's wireless 
plant. The following afternoon, the British and 
French ministers presented Premier Zaimis a 
formal demand in these terms : 

By instruction of their governments, the undersigned 
have the honor to bring the following to the knowledge 
of the Hellenic Government : 

297 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

(1) The two Allied Governments, knowing from sure 
sources that their enemies are kept informed in various 
ways, and notably by the Hellenic telegraph, demand 
the control of the posts, the telegraphs, and the wire- 
less telegraph. 

(2) Enemy agents of corruption and espionage must 
immediately leave Greece, not to return until after the 
end of hostilities. 

(3) Necessary steps will be taken against Greek sub- 
jects who may have been guilty of the acts of corrup- 
tion and espionage above mentioned. 

The Russian and Italian ministers could not 
bring themselves to sign a document of this extra- 
ordinary character. Certainly the Government 
of the United States has had far more cause to 
initiate drastic action against "enemy agents of 
corruption and espionage" in Mexico during the 
past two years than Great Britain and France 
had to take such action against Greece. It has 
not, however, appeared altogether compatible 
with the independence of Mexico as a sovereign 
state that any such action be even contemplated. 
Indeed, it is significant that no attempt was made 
in this second Entente ultimatum to justify it on 
grounds of international or any other kind of law. 
Perhaps it was just as well that no justification 
was attempted. The "sure sources" were not set 
forth, and the British and French governments 

298 



THE SECOND ULTIMATUM 

remained sole judges of their alleged sureness. 
The test of the guilt of the persons against whom 
"necessary steps" were to be taken appeared to 
be the mere denunciation of the Anglo-French 
secret police; whatever was to be done, would be 
done without trial. Neither the principles of in- 
ternational law nor the guarantees of the Greek 
constitution were to prevail against this demand. 
The Greek sovereign's immediate acceptance 
of its drastic terms constitutes at this juncture the 
best possible evidence that his proposal of Sep- 
tember 1 to join the Allies was the expression of 
a sincere purpose from which he did not propose 
to be easily turned, however great the provoca- 
tion to revoke it. And, indeed, I know that dur- 
ing the long period from his first conversation 
with me on that head until his offer had been 
finally rejected on November 19, the King of the 
Hellenes did not cease, even when the defeat of 
Rumania was assured, by every means to seek 
to find some combination acceptable to Great 
Britain and France, by which the Hellenic armies 
as a whole could take their place beside the Allies. 
As a matter of fact, while he was well aware that 
the ultimatum of September 2 would only em- 

299 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

barrass him in his effort to swing Greece to the 
side of the Allies, and regretted it on that ac- 
count, he did not regard it as of any great sig- 
nificance in view of the fact that he expected 
hourly to take similar measures himself, as a loyal 
ally of the Entente. One thing alone preoc- 
cupied him at this period, when I saw and talked 
with him frequently: whether or not the Allied 
governments were dealing honestly by his pro- 
posal of cooperation and meeting him on his own 
ground of complete frankness. 

A similar feeling of mistrust was constantly 
stimulated in the minds of the Entente ministers 
by their Venizelist advisers. During the negoti- 
ations which followed, Sir Francis Elliot fre- 
quently asked me if I were sure former ministers 
Streit, Stratos, and Schlieman, and the others as- 
sisting King Constantine in his task of swinging 
Greece to war, were sincere. Their sincerity, 
however, should have been plain, since Dr. Streit 
was actively aiding King Constantine to draft the 
messages confirming his proposals, sent subse- 
quently through his brothers to the governments 
of Great Britain, Russia, and France, while 
Messrs. Stratos and Schlieman sacrificed their 

300 



THE SECOND ULTIMATUM 

entire political standing with the conservative 
party, which was in favor of peace, to form the 
new party — the king's party, it was called — in 
favor of war. 

The unqualified and immediate acceptance of 
the ultimatum failed to spare Athens and the 
Piraeus one of the most astounding performances 
of the war. The heads of the Anglo-French 
secret police had not got the fleet to Greece them- 
selves to retire into the background. No dis- 
position was shown to await the action of the 
legally constituted Greek authorities to fulfil the 
terms of the second demand of the ultimatum, 
despite Premier Zaimis's recognized pro-Entente 
sympathies. Instead, several cars, one in par- 
ticular known in true melodramatic style as "the 
black car" loaded with professional gunmen 
armed to the teeth, and under the personal di- 
rection of a British officer in uniform, undertook 
to arrest such of the alleged "foreign agents" as 
they desired, without legal warrant or other au- 
thority than that lent by the guns of the Allied 
squadron off the Pireeus. Representatives of two 
great nations with whom inviolability of domicile 
and the right of trial by jury have been the ripe 

301 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

fruit of civilization, openly ignored both funda- 
mental rights in a friendly, neutral country. 
Homes were entered by force, "arrests" were 
made at the point of a revolver, and the persons 
so arrested were overpowered and taken into cus- 
tody without trial, while the gunmen employed 
in this ugly business rifled, on their own account, 
the houses entered, of jewels and valuables. On 
the authority of a member of one of the legations 
concerned in the affair, I learned that three of 
the hired gunmen engaged in it were killed. A 
veritable reign of terror was begun which shocked 
not only the Greeks, aghast at such conduct on 
the part of British and French, but the British 
and French nationals resident in Greece, who 
were witnesses of it. The English especially, 
both within the British legation and without it, 
registered a very sharp protest against methods 
of this German sort. As a result, after some 
seventy-two hours of lawlessness, the illegal ar- 
rests were stopped. 

While the Venizelists hastened to defend this 
amazing business, especially since certain of their 
political opponents were among the Greeks 
sought by the Anglo-French secret police, King 

302 







'^ 



If 



//' 



THE SECOND ULTIMATUM 

Constantine and all other Greeks were outraged 
and incensed by it. Princess Alice of Batten- 
berg, the English wife of the king's brothei^ 
Prince Andrew, was very plain-spoken indeed in 
her denunciation of the conduct of her country- 
men. 

"Not even in the worst days in Russia," she 
said, "have such things been countenanced. 
That it is we, the English, supposed to be the 
protecting power of Greece, guarantors of the 
constitutional liberties of the Hellenic people, 
who are doing it is infamous ! I am certain that 
the people at home would not tolerate it a moment 
if they knew what is going on." 

Naturally, this whole business did not make 
the Greek sovereign's self -set task of joining the 
Allies, already difficult enough, any the easier. 
Yet with signal tenacity of purpose he continued 
his efforts to get all of his officers and men in 
hand to be ready at the call. Admiral Coun- 
douriotis, the admiral of the Greek fleet, was set 
to consulting with Admiral Palmer, the new head 
of the British naval mission in Greece, touching 
Greek cooperation by sea with the Allies. Pre- 
mier Zaimis was not only busily engaged elabo- 

305 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

rating the details of the proposed arrangement, 
in frequent conference with the Entente minis- 
ters, but took steps to secure to his cabinet that 
pohtical recognition from the party leaders in 
Greece essential to carrying the necessary war 
appropriations through the Boule. No sooner 
had King Constantine decided on offering 
Greece's cooperation with the Entente than Mr. 
Za'imis sent to Venizelos to ascertain precisely 
what he meant by his phrase, "The liberal party 
are prepared to invest this cabinet of affairs 
with their own political authority." He found 
that statement to be in fact somewhat more 
sweeping than the Cretan's real intentions. A 
condition was placed upon Venizelos's recognition 
of the Zaimis cabinet as a responsible ministry; 
namely, that the elections now imminent be post- 
poned. 

It was of course an admission of the complete 
failure of Venizelos's whole electoral campaign, 
to impose which upon Greece the Cretan had on 
June 21 inspired an ultimatum from his Entente 
backers. It revealed for the first time the grow- 
ing weakness of Venizelos, and betrayed that 
Venizelos himself was aware he was losing 

806 



THE SECOND ULTIMATUM 

ground. It constituted still another step in the 
maze of the Cretan's shifting policy — his first re- 
fusal to participate in the elections of December 
19, 1915; then his standing for election himself 
to a Boule which he declared unconstitutional; 
and finally, after claiming that the only legal 
elections were those by which he had been given 
a majority on June 13, 1915, demanding new 
elections a year later, in direct contradiction 
to his previous position. He now insisted that 
these new elections be postponed. It is of little 
consequence that the reader fail to follow this 
rapidly altering policy — ^no one in Greece was 
able to follow it, either. 

Mr. Zaimis had other things on his mind be- 
sides the political tergiversations of Yenizelos. 
He was willing to postpone the elections if the 
Entente ministers consented to it. At the in- 
stance of Venizelos, they did so, thus nullifying 
their ultimatum of June 21, the corner-stone of 
which had been the demand for new elections. 
On the satisfactory arrangement of this feature, 
Venizelos agreed to give the support of the 
liberal party to the Zaimis cabinet. Similarly 
approached by Mr. Zaimis, Messrs. Gounaris and 

307 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Rhallys, the leaders of two factions of the con- 
servatives, promised a like support of the Zaimis 
government. The stage was set for the final act 
of Greece's neutrality. Not a single important 
voice was now raised against Greece's joining 
the Allies. Queen Sophie, herself, the Kaiser's 
sister, speaking of the imminent change in the 
policy of Greece, exclaimed "How can it be 
otherwise!" Baron von Schenck, with whom I 
talked on the day of his expulsion from Greece, 
declared flatly that Greece's entry into the war 
was inevitable. The Austrian and German 
ministers were so persuaded of this that they tele- 
graphed their home governments advising that 
the United States be sounded about representing 
their interests in Greece in the event of war, and 
began their preparations to leave Athens. 

On September 6, receiving the officers of the 
11th Division who, in the revolt at Saloniki on 
August 30, had remained loyal to the Greek flag, 
King Constantine drove home the lesson of disci- 
pline in the organization of an army. In a stir- 
ring speech he praised those who had remained 
faithful to their oath, concluding with the state- 

308 



THE SECOND ULTIMATUM 

ment that "with such officers and men we are 
ready to face any enemy!" 

Thus foreshadowing an early declaration of 
war, the commander-in-chief of the Greek army 
gave the keynote for an immense military en- 
thusiasm, whose widespread sincerity assured the 
king, and might also have served to convince the 
Entente ministers, had they known how to in- 
terpret events, that the military brotherhood of 
every veteran of Kilkis and Janina was ready to 
leap to the colors the moment King Constantine 
gave the word. It is beyond question that, had 
the cabinets of London and Paris shown them- 
selves capable of rapid decision at this juncture, 
had they been free to accept an arrangement with 
Greece on the basis of a guarantee of the integrity 
of that country, Greece's entry into the war on 
the side of the Entente would have been a settled 
fact within a few days. 



309 



CHAPTER XIX 

A CABINET FORMED FOR WAR 

The only people in Athens who appeared un- 
aware of the trend of events early in September, 
1916, were the British and French legations and 
the British and French newspaper correspond- 
ents. The latter, used to securing all their in- 
formation from Venizelist sources, either could 
not or did not take the troubje to work up new 
relationships which would enable them to follow 
what was afoot. They continued to fill the 
London and Paris dailies with increasingly bitter 
attacks on King Constantine, treating him as 
an enemy to the Allies, while definite, binding 
proposals for the active cooperation of Greece 
with the Entente were actually under the con- 
sideration of their governments. One thing 
which the Greek sovereign never understood was 
why the British and French governments, both 
exercising a rigid censorship on all newspapers, 
far from quieting this clamor during the discus- 
sion of Greece's entry into the war, seemed rather 

310 



A CABINET FORMED FOR WAR 

to stimulate it. Every fact about the practical 
aid which Greece up to that time had furnished 
the Allies was either summarily suppressed, or 
distorted so as to show that the aid in question 
had been rendered by Mr. Venizelos, against the 
opposition of the King of the Hellenes. 

An example of this press campaign against 
King Constantine lay in the interpretation given 
his speech to the loyal officers of the 11th Di- 
vision, on September 6. Obviously, after a dis- 
affection, however trifling, in the ranks of his 
army, the commander-in-chief might be expected 
to take some action. His army plainly would be 
of very little use, either to him or to his future 
allies, if every soldier were freely permitted to 
decide the foreign policy of Greece for himself 
and to govern his loyalty to his oath as a soldier 
accordingly. King Constantine's phrase about 
readiness "to face any enemy" was very evidently 
calculated to hearten his men against a campaign 
in which the redoubtable military force of Ger- 
many was engaged — a force whose prowess every 
Balkan had reason to take seriously since the ter- 
rible disaster to Serbia and Montenegro. This 
was actually the effect upon the Greek officers 

311 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

and men of King Constantine's words; yet the 
London and Paris newspapers would not so have 
it. According to them, a discourse on discipHne, 
similar to that made to every squad of recruits to 
the United States army, was nothing short of a 
flagrant example of the Prussian militarism of 
Constantine I. In their columns King Constan- 
tine was a rabid militarist one day, and a cowardly 
pacifist, afraid to fight Germany, the next; but 
every day he was hostile to the Entente, despic- 
able, and ruled completely by his wife, the 
Kaiser's sister. 

This sort of propaganda did not relieve the 
Greek sovereign of any of his fear that the British 
and French governments were again, as in Au- 
gust, 1915, playing a double game with him in 
their negotiations for Greece's entry into hostili- 
ties. Moreover, as a propaganda, it demon- 
strated that the Venizelists back of it were by no 
means so ready to stand behind the Zaimis cabinet 
as the Cretan's public declarations might lead one 
to suppose. To those watching the rapid prog- 
ress of events in Athens at this juncture, Veni- 
zelos's acceptance of the Zaimis cabinet, as one 
endowed with political functions, appeared sus- 

312 



A CABINET FORMED FOR WAR 

piciously out of drawing with his previous atti- 
tude. Not even the Cretan's desire to have the 
elections postponed could altogether account for 
his acquiescence in the consummation of military 
cooperation between King Constantine and the 
Entente without himself as deus ex machina. A 
surprise, therefore, was generally awaited. 

It came on September 9. During the daily 
evening conference of the Entente diplomatists 
at the French legation, several shots were fired 
into the air in front of the building, and a cry 
raised of "Long hve the King!" Those re- 
sponsible immediately fled. No damage of any 
kind was done. 

The stir which M. Guillemin, the French min- 
ister, made over this so-called "incident" seemed 
to every dispassionate observer wholly out of pro- 
portion to the importance of the incident itself. 
He sent at once to the admiral of the Allied fleet 
and requested a legation guard of armed marines. 
He demanded instant apologies from the prime 
minister of Greece, and the condign punishment 
of the Greek officer in charge of the soldiers 
normally acting as sentries before the legation. 
Had the legation building been riddled by a 

313 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

dozen bullets, he could scarcely have been more 
exigent. 

The "incident" was hailed in the British and 
French press as well as the Venizelist newspapers 
of Athens as "an attack on the French legation." 
It smacked, however, of a motion picture scenario. 
There was no logical reason for a demonstration 
against the French at this time. All the loyalists 
and the officers and soldiers of the Greek army 
were solidly behind King Constantine in his plan 
to join the Entente — certainly not to attack the 
Entente. The only dissatisfied fraction of the 
population of the capital was the Venizelist ele- 
ment. Judicial investigation ultimately demon- 
strated that precisely this element had been re- 
sponsible for the "incident," conceived with the 
idea of embroiling the Zaimis cabinet with the 
Entente, thus putting an end to King Constan- 
tine's negotiations to join the Allies. The stage 
managers of the alleged attack were shown to 
have chosen the French instead of the British 
legation, counting on professional jealousy to 
move M. Guillemin to seize the occasion to block 
the negotiations, for the success of which his 
British colleague would obtain the credit. What- 

314 



A CABINET FORMED FOR WAR 

ever his faults, M. Guillemin is scarcely the man 
to be influenced by such considerations. His 
action, however, had the desired effect of block- 
ing the negotiations. 

It was only long afterwards that the hearing 
of the case in court brought evidence to light in- 
dicating that the signal for the firing had been 
given from a window of the French legation it- 
self. The Russian minister's chauffeur, an eye- 
witness to the occurrence, deposed his impression 
that the man directing the affair was an employee 
of the French legation, while other evidence was 
adduced to the effect that the revolvers used in 
the firing were returned afterwards to the office 
of the British secret police. When, during the 
examination, the magistrate charged with the case 
questioned M. Guillemin, the French minister 
asked him to whom the investigation pointed as 
the instigator of the business. 

"To your Excellency," the magistrate replied, 
dryly. 

Puerile enough in itself, the effect of the "in- 
cident" was dire and far-reaching. The Venize- 
lists at once spread broadcast the fiction that the 
League of Reservists had plotted murder. Evi- 

315 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

dently fearing the electoral strength and loyalty 
to their commander-in-chief of these veterans 
whom Constantine I had twice led to victory, the 
Cretan and his followers planned to break up 
their organization. That at the same time the 
king's means of securing a full mobilization in 
the shortest possible time, should Greece join the 
Allies, would also be destroyed, only made the 
Venizelists the more anxious for the dissolution 
of the League of Reservists. They desired 
nothing less than that Greece should join the 
Allies under the auspices of the king. In this 
instance, as in so many others, any suggestion 
from Venizelos prevailed with the British and 
French ministers over practical considerations of 
direct advantage to the Entente. Following the 
"incident" of the French legation, they therefore 
demanded that the meeting places of the League 
of Reservists be closed. 

The demand was accepted, albeit neither Mr. 
Zaimis nor the king could in the least understand 
this persistent policy on the part of British and 
French ministers of making the arrangements 
for Greece's effective military support of the 
Allies always more difficult by constant new de- 

316 



A CABINET FORMED FOR WAR 

mands. Immediately following the "incident" 
Premier Zaimis expressed in person the regret of 
the Greek Government. King Constantine sent 
the grand marshal of the court, Count Mercati, 
to convey his own chagrin at the occurrence. 
The officer in charge of the Greek guard was 
duly punished. But none of these things satis- 
fied M. Guillemin. On September 10, a platoon 
of French marines was landed at the Piraeus and 
marched with bayonets fixed to the French lega- 
tion; another was sent to the French school, the 
headquarters of the French secret police. The 
tricolor was raised on both buildings with all the 
circumstance which might have marked the estab- 
lishment of two French fortresses in the ancient 
city. Less temperamental than his French col- 
league, the British minister found these precau- 
tions a bit theatrical and wholly needless. He 
refused either to ask for or to accept a legation 
guard. 

The "incident" would have proved of only 
minor significance after all, save for one fact. 
Premier Zaimis ordered the Greek police to make 
a rigid investigation of the affair and to report 
to him at once. The revelations of the investi- 

317 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

gation, afterwards confirmed in court during the 
trial of the culprits, showed that the notorious 
Cretan bandit, Paul Gyparis, a follower of Veni- 
zelos and an employee of the French secret police, 
had hired ten gunmen to carry out the comedy, 
which had been planned in the Venizelist head- 
quarters and in the office of the French secret 
police. Its primary purpose was to enable the 
French minister to establish a strong force of 
armed marines at his legation, within two hun- 
dred yards of King Constantine's palace. The 
interest of the Venizelists in the matter was the 
closing of the meeting places of the League of 
Reservists. 

No sooner had the premier learned these de- 
tails than he laid before his sovereign his convic- 
tion that the negotiations he was trying to conduct 
with the British minister for Greece's departure 
from neutrality could not under the circumstances 
be sincere on the part of the Allied diplomatists. 
A singularly direct and upright man, Mr. 
Zaimis was profoundly wounded at what he 
could scarcely help regarding as the duplicity of 
the French which, in his esteem for France, he 
found out of keeping with the high cause for 

318 



A CABINET FORMED FOR WAR 

which France was fighting the world war. He 
therefore begged the Greek monarch to release 
him from his mandate as premier. 

The King was reluctant to accept Mr. Zaimis's 
resignation and m'ged him to remain. The Brit- 
ish minister was equally upset and added his plea 
to that of the sovereign. Mr. Zaimis frankly 
said that had M. Guillemin been willing to make 
a formal disavowal of the whole intrigue and to 
display a willingness to continue negotiations in 
a spirit of candor, he would consent to remain. 
M. Guillemin could not bring himself to go so 
far, however, and King Constantine was there- 
fore forced to seek another premier and another 
cabinet and to recommence his efforts to reach an 
understanding with the Entente from the begin- 
ning. 

To the Venizelists this was a triumph. Each 
new cabinet overthrown made it more difficult to 
secure a capable premier without having recourse 
to Venizelos. But it was disheartening business 
for the Greek monarch; and the Entente, far 
from aiding him, seemed to put every possible 
obstacle in his way — probably likewise with the 
hope of forcing the return of Venizelos. 

319 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

To complicate matters further the Bulgarian 
forces, camped on the hills commanding Cavalla, 
suddenly decided to enter the city, in defiance of 
their written pledge. On September 10, Colonel 
Hadjopoulos, commanding that part of the 
Greek fourth army corps stationed in the city, 
telegraphed the minister of war in Athens: 

"The fourth Greek army corps at Cavalla 
wishes to surrender at once to the British. The 
Bulgarians threaten to bombard the city to-mor- 
row, Monday." 

Owing to the Allied control of the telegraph, 
his message was necessarily transmitted by way 
of Saloniki, through the British admiral, who in 
turn telegraphed the Greek staff in reply : 

"Do you wish me to permit the Greek troops 
to embark on Greek ships?" On the receipt of 
this enquiiy General Callaris, the minister of war, 
replied through the British military attache in 
Athens : 

"Fourth army corps — Cavalla. Transport 
yourselves immediately with all your effective 
and, if possible, all supplies to Volo, arranging 
transport with British admiral. Embark prefer- 
ably on Greek ships, but if none are available, on 

320 



A CABINET FORMED FOR WAR 

ships of any other nationality. The civil author- 
ities and police must remain at Cavalla." 

It was only when too late to set matters right 
that the British military attache admitted to the 
chief of the Greek staff that there had been an 
undue delay in the delivery of these peremptory 
orders owing, he explained, to formalities be- 
tween the Allied military and naval authorities. 
Meanwhile, however, the British naval officer in 
command proposed to transport Colonel Hadjo- 
poulos and his troops to Saloniki. Hadjopou- 
los's orders had not come. The experience of 
certain officers of the 11th Division who had 
been imprisoned in Saloniki for refusing to join 
the Allies, counseled the Greek commander 
against any such disposition of his troops. Some 
3400 men and 80 officers had already been taken 
to Thassos by the French, where they were held 
as prisoners.^ Both men and officers of that con- 
tingent have since informed me that every pos- 
sible pressure was put upon them, during their 
stay with the French on Thassos, to induce them 
to desert their flag and join General Sarrail's 

1 Col. Christodoulos, who afterwards joined Sarrail's army, 
stated, in an interview in the Venizelist "Elephtheros Typos": 
"We were treated as enemies" by the French on Thassos. 

323 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

forces. It was evidently fearing precisely this 
that Colonel Hadjopoulos made the decision he 
did. First he proposed, in his turn, the trans- 
port of his troops to Volo, or the Pirseus, or 
any other Greek port not under the martial 
law administered by General Sarrail. He 
could obtain no assurance that he and his men 
would not be sent to Saloniki.^ The delay al- 
lowed by the Bulgarians came to an end. 
Rather than risk the disintegration of his com- 
mand under Allied pressure at Saloniki, he sur- 
rendered 70 officers and 800 men to the Bulgar- 
ians. Meanwhile the French commander on 
Thassos announced his intention to ship all the 
Greek soldiers who would not enlist with the 
Allies to some Greek island as prisoners, putting 
the officers who refused to volunteer to join Sar- 
rail back on shore and deliver them over to the 
Germans. Only upon the insistence of Colonel 

i"The army corps commander [Colonel Hadjopoulos] was just 
embarking on a small English vessel when suddenly its captain, in 
spite of the understanding reached with the Entente agents, de- 
manded to know in what quality he embarked. At the same 
moment, two revolutionary officers. Major Stavrinopoulos and 
Lieutenant Vacas, covered him with their revolvers and cried out: 
'Join the Saloniki movement or you can't come aboard!' Exas- 
perated, the colonel refused and returned ashore." Major Pas- 
saris: "L'Entente et la Grece," p. 85. 



A CABINET FORMED FOR WAR 

Christodoulos, himself an ardent Ententist and a 
volunteer for Saloniki, was it finally decided to 
send officers and men to Volo as Colonel Hadjo- 
poulos had suggested and as General Callaris 
had ordered. Of the 80 officers, 72 declared that 
they would remain loyal to king and country and 
were ultimately transported to Volo. 

Great capital has been made of this action in 
the British and French press, with a view to show- 
ing the hostility of the Greek army officers to the 
Allies. But it is more than probable that had 
the British admiral acted promptly, without 
injecting the question of joining the Allies into 
the matter of transporting the Greek troops 
from Cavalla, Colonel Hadjopoulos and his 
force would now be safely in Greece instead 
of in Silesia. As in the case of the surrender 
of Fort Rupel, the Allied military author- 
ities seem to have taken the chance that when 
faced with the choice of joining General Sarrail's 
army or giving way before the Bulgars, the 
Greeks would choose the former. On every oc- 
casion, however, the Greeks have seen through 
this intention and rather than be tricked into a 
course they have not deliberately chosen, have 

325 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

chosen a course nullifying the Entente's calcu- 
lations. 

In general it may be remarked that if it was 
an error from the beginning to attempt to coerce 
the Greeks, it was doubly so to try to outwit them. 
Familiar through five centuries with the oriental 
duplicity of the Turk, the transparent subtleties 
of British and French diplomacy in the near East 
appeared to them childish, and frequently 
achieved just the opposite of what was intended. 

Nevertheless, the surrender of Colonel Hadjo- 
poulos's force to the Bulgars raised a great hue 
and cry throughout Greece. Not the least of 
those enraged by the event was King Constantine. 
I saw him for a moment just after the news 
reached him. His is, on occasions, the language 
of a soldier, as forcible and picturesque as that of 
any trooper. This was such an occasion. Col- 
onel Hadjopoulos, the Germans, the Bulgars, 
General Sarrail, the British admiral, and a few 
others — all came in for an impartial display of 
verbal fireworks which I have seldom seen 
equaled. What annoyed him most was that the 
incident, like that of the alleged attack on the 
French legation, gave a handle to those opposing 

326 



A CABINET FORMED FOR WAR 

the arrangements which he was bending every 
energy to complete with the Entente. A high 
permanent official of the Greek Government, who 
is both an ardent Ententist and a Venizelist, at 
this juncture expressed the general sentiment in 
Greece : 

"I hope the Entente now sees," he said, "where 
the policy of trying to force matters leads. The 
moral effect of Greece's joining the Allies would 
unquestionably be to shorten the war by many 
months. But without an unpolitical figure like 
Zaimis to conduct the negotiations, there is 
scarcely a ghost of a chance that the matter can 
be arranged. 

"God knows nobody in Greece has opposed our 
entry into the war for the last fortnight. If we 
do not enter, the responsibility must fall upon 
those who have been too impatient to await the 
end of a legitimate discussion of details." 

Not without difficulty was King Constantine 
able to secure another Ententist, Mr. Nicholas 
Dimitricopoulos, to take up Mr. Zaimis's task. 
The new premier's first act was to consult the 
Allied ministers as to the constitution of his cabi- 
net and the powers it should exercise. Declar- 

327 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

ing himself frankly in favor of war, he desired 
two things to make his ground sure: the same 
political recognition that had been accorded the 
Zaimis cabinet and, that there might be no ques- 
tion of the popular verdict for war, immediate 
compliance with the provision of the Allied ulti- 
matum of June 21 regarding the holding of new 
elections. 

This was far from suiting the book of the Veni- 
zelists. Now as anxious to put off elections as 
he had previously been ready to insist upon them, 
the Cretan concentrated all his influence against 
an Allied recognition of Mr. Dimitricopoulos as 
prime minister. He succeeded, and the British 
and French ministers, despite Mr. Dimitricopou- 
los's candid war program, vetoed the selection of 
him as head of the new government. It is a little 
difficult to see just how they expected a premier 
to bind Greece in an alhance for war while deny- 
ing him the power to bind Greece to anything. 
I doubt if the two diplomatists considered this, 
however. It is probable that they hoped by re- 
fusing to recognize Mr. Dimitricopoulos to force 
the king at last to turn to.Venizelos. To make 
this more certain, they let it be known that the 

328 



A CABINET FORMED FOR WAR 

Entente would not recognize as premier former 
prime ministers Gounaris, Rhallys, or Skou- 
loudis, or ex-Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr. 
George Streit, or even the leader of "the king's 
party" for war, ex-Minister of Marine Nicholas 
Stratos. 

In the face of this wholesale embargo on the 
political talent of Greece, King Constantine was 
in a quandary. His problem was two-fold: to 
satisfy the Allied diplomatists and at the same 
time to find a man of sufficient political standing 
to be able to manage the Boule. For the latter 
purpose, Venizelos was out of the question, as the 
Boule was almost unanimous against him — and 
the Entente would not permit new elections by 
which another Boule could be chosen. Yet a 
declaration of war without the support of the 
Boule would be unquestionably a denial of every 
principle of democracy. Had King Constantine 
been willing, as Venizelos evidently was, to set up 
a virtual dictatorship, no doubt he could have 
managed it; but the Greek monarch clung tena- 
ciously to constitutional rule and could not be 
persuaded to overstep the constitutional limits of 
his power. 

329 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

The British and French ministers treated this 
problem of practical democracy as if the elected 
representatives of the Greek people were of no 
earthly consequence. The king, therefore, de- 
cided that the next premier he chose should form 
a cabinet to take care of this phase of the situa- 
tion, whether its membership pleased the Entente 
or not. He selected Nicholas Caloguyeropoulos 
to continue the negotiations for Greece's joining 
the Entente. Caloguyeropoulos was an ardent 
Francophile, a doctor of laws of Paris, and 
long a resident of Marseilles, with close business 
and personal ties in England. To handle the 
Boule, the King suggested that the anti-war 
party in that body be given a minority represen- 
tation in the ministry, but that the majority be 
pledged in advance to reach an alliance with the 
Allies. Three of the ministers, Lysander Kaf- 
tanzhoglo, Demitrios Vocotopoulos, and Lucas 
Ruphos, were therefore chosen from the number 
of the deputies opposed to war; the remainder 
of the cabinet, also members of parliament, were 
ready to follow Premier Caloguyeropoulos in 
joining the Entente. As deputies, all were di- 
rectly responsible to their electors, constituting 

330 



A CABINET FORMED FOR WAR 

thereby a cabinet responsible to the people with- 
out necessitating the fiction of securing the en- 
dorsement of the various party leaders. It was 
significant that all three ministers opposed to 
war were men with whom the word of the king 
would have been sufficient to change their atti- 
tude when the moment for action arrived. 

What was of more significance than anything 
else, however, was the action of King Constan- 
tine himself at this juncture. The moment he 
secured Nicholas Dimitricopoulos to form a war 
cabinet, he did not even await the completion of 
the ministry. At once he telegraphed his broth- 
ers, the Princes George, Nicholas, and Andrew, 
then in Paris, Petrograd, and London, to give the 
governments of the three powers his personal 
word that his one purpose was active military co- 
operation with the Allies in a campaign against 
Bulgaria, and in his name, as constitutional com- 
mander-in-chief of the land and naval forces of 
Greece, to offer formally the full assistance of 
Greece, on the terms already outlined to Sir 
Francis Elliot, that is, on the basis of a guarantee 
of the integrity of Hellas. 

I have myself seen the original message, and 
331 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

it is beyond dispute that by it King Constantine 
intended to and did bind himself definitely to the 
cause of the Entente. There could be no turn- 
ing back. The governments of Great Britain, 
France, and Russia had only to accept the offer 
to conclude the arrangements for Greece's entry 
into the war on the side of the Allies. 



332 



CHAPTER XX 

VENIZELOS DECLARES REVOLUTION 

Prince Nicholas has described to me the de- 
hght of the Russian Government with King Con- 
stantine's proposal. They suggested, however, 
that the proposal be made officially through the 
prime minister and cabinet of Greece. Prince 
Nicholas so telegraphed his brother. This was 
precisely what King Constantine desired to do, 
but was prevented by the delays in forming a 
cabinet satisfactory to the Entente ministers in 
Athens. The Caloguyeropoulos cabinet was 
sworn in on September 16. Its first act was 
to draft a formal proposal of alliance between 
Greece and the Entente which was forwarded 
to London, Paris, and Petrograd on September 
18. The same day that this was done, King 
Constantine called to the palace Demitrios Kalo- 
pothakis, the editor of the "Embros," the leading 
independent newspaper of Greece, and requested 
him to begin a campaign favoring war, in the 

333 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

columns of the "Embros," thus facihtating the 
Caloguyeropoulos cabinet in its effort to secure 
the support of sufficient deputies in the Boule to 
provide for a vote of war credits. 

The Venizelists were ignorant of none of these 
steps toward a complete understanding between 
King Constantine and the Allies. The success 
of the negotiations meant to them merely that, 
in the event of war, Venizelos would not be in a 
position to distribute offices and army contracts 
to his followers. They saw their dreams of 
wealth and power fade. Backs to the wall, they 
fought with every weapon the consummation of 
the king's plans. 

In this, the British and French journalists in 
Athens were of the greatest aid to the Cretan. 
Taking their cue from the Venizelist press, they 
flooded London, Paris, and Petrograd with ar- 
ticles impeaching the sincerity of the Greek 
monarch's attitude and arraigning the Caloguy- 
eropoulos cabinet as pro-German, because of the 
presence in it of three minority members opposed 
to war. Every spoken or pubHshed word of these 
three men in criticism of the Entente was dug 
out by Venizelos and turned over to the press 

334< 



VENIZELOS DECLARES REVOLUTION 

representatives of the Entente countries, to be 
telegraphed abroad as indicating the hostihty to 
the Allies of the entire Caloguyeropoulos cabinet. 
While the chancelleries of London, Paris, and 
Petrograd were aware hbw far King Constantine 
had gone toward joining the Allied forces, they 
kept their knowledge secret. At the same time 
they permitted the press to spread broadcast the 
impression that the attitude of the Greek sover- 
eign was precisely the contrary. 

This impression was also reflected in the United 
States. Certain New York dailies have arrange- 
ments for republishing despatches to certain 
London newspapers. Thus those from Greece 
are innocently handed out to the American pub- 
lic, ignorant of the springs of intrigue beneath 
them. To aid in his press propaganda against 
the cooperation of Greece and the Entente with- 
out his intermediation, Venizelos established a 
new daily in Athens, the "Elephtheros Typos." 
Its presses were ordered in New York and 
paid for with French money, to the tune of 
$14,000; its editor, previously a needy refugee 
from Constantinople, suddenly blossomed forth 
arrayed like the lily of the field. Venizelos him- 

335 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

self, who had come from Crete seven years before 
with holes in the seat of his trousers, and whose 
entire salary, during his continuous period of 
office-holding, would not total $20,000, suddenly 
purchased a house on Athens's most fashionable 
residence street, which was valued at $160,000. 

Against a treasure chest of these proportions 
Premier Caloguyeropoulos, like every political 
figure in modern Greek history, save Venizelos, 
a man of modest means, struggled at a handicap 
to present the truth about his cabinet. He made 
little headway. Caloguyeropoulos was a pro- 
German; the "Embros," supporting the king's 
war policy, was in the pay of Baron von Schenck 
(long since unable to pay anybody) ; King Con- 
stantine was playing for time until Rumania 
could be crushed — thus the chorus of the Veni- 
zelist faithful was dinned into the ears of the 
British and French public. And all that time. 
King Constantine, his cards on the table, was 
waiting replies from London, Paris, and Petro- 
grad to his offer to join the Allies. 

The formal proposal made by Foreign Minis- 
ter Carapanos on September 18 was somewhat 
more comprehensive than the king's informal 

336 



VENIZELOS DECLARES REVOLUTION 

one. In brief, the conditions were: a guarantee 
of the integrity of Greece; that the Greek army 
should be put upon such a footing, in respect to 
equipment and munitions, as to be able to wage 
effective war, as war had developed during the 
past two years, before being called upon to take 
active part in the hostilities; and finally, — as an 
observation, not as a condition, — that no dispo- 
sition should be made of Thrace or Asia Minor 
after the war without consulting Greece as one 
of the powers to decide the fate of these provinces. 
In communicating to me these terms, Premier 
Caloguyeropoulos said: 

All that is really essential is what King Constantine 
has already told you, namely, the guarantee of the in- 
integrity of Greece. That our army shall be properly 
equipped is as much to the interest of the Allies as it is 
to ours. We are ready to enter the war with our bare 
fists if need be, but it is to nobody's advantage that we 
declare war unprepared. As for Thrace and Asia 
Minor — we ask no promises of concessions ; but owing 
to the large proportion of Greeks inhabiting this ter- 
ritory we think that Greece should be party to any 
discussion of its final disposition. I may add that, for 
the sake of the millions of Greeks who still live in the 
Ottoman Empire, we suggested that the negotiations 
remain confidential until an agreement should be 
reached. M. Briand, however, objected to this, and we 
have accordingly waived it. 

Of the campaign in the foreign press against 
337 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

King Constantine and the new cabinet, the 
premier said : 

I can't understand it ! Nothing could be more un- 
just to King Constantine than these persistent asser- 
tions that he is pro-German. He is pro-Greek and 
only pro-Greek. He is the last man in Greece to be 
moved by any prejudice of ready made opinion, what- 
soever. 

At the same time Premier Caloguyeropoulos 
sent the Bulgarian Government a peremptory 
note demanding the liberation of Colonel Had- 
jopoulos and his men, then held as prisoners at 
Phillippopolis. This demand was calculated to 
serve as a basis of a declaration of war the mo- 
ment the Entente powers accepted King Con- 
stantine's proposals. The acceptance seemed far 
away, however, the Allied governments continu- 
ing to embarrass negotiations by obstinately re- 
fusing to recognize the existence of the Caloguy- 
eropoulos cabinet. 

Their attitude was time gained for the Venize- 
lists, who were in a panic at the rapidity with 
which the preparations for leaving neutrahty 
were proceeding. At the behest of Venizelos, 
emissaries, charged to stir up a revolt against 
King Constantine and his government, left 

338 



VENIZELOS DECLARES REVOLUTION 

Athens for Crete and the out islands. For this 
treasonable purpose the islands were chosen in- 
stead of the mainland of Greece, because their 
populations had so recently, become Greek citi- 
zens that they were as yet unimbued with any 
abiding sense of civic consciousness. During the 
ninety years that the predecessors of Venizelos 
had been building up in continental Greece a 
democratic state founded upon the responsibility 
of citizenship, some half million denizens of the 
out islands, of whom Venizelos was one, had 
known only revolution as means of political ac- 
tion. It was, therefore, natural enough that in 
their failure to halt King Constantine's negotia- 
tions with the Allied powers hj constitutional 
means, Venizelos and his followers should turn to 
the lawless method of armed revolt. 

It was impossible for any one in Athens at this 
time to remain long ignorant of the preparations 
for revolution. On September 20, 1 asked Veni- 
zelos point blank whether it was true that he 
planned to go to Saloniki to place himself at the 
head of the movement he was organizing to split 
the Kingdom of Greece into two hostile camps. 

"It would be unwise for me to answer you 
339 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

now," he said. "I must wait a brief time yet to 
see what the Government purposes to do, before 
deciding what course it would be best to take in 
the event Greece does not enter the war. As I 
said on August 27, if the King will not hear the 
voice of the people, we must ourselves decide 
what it is best to do. I do not know what it will 
be, but a long continuation of the present situa- 
tion is intolerable." He very frankly voiced a 
fear that the Serbs might, after the war, retain 
a part of Greek Macedonia, and that the Allies 
might hold Saloniki ; and he expressed the opinion 
that it was necessary to take some drastic action 
to forestall these two possibilities. 

While the Cretan was thus giving voice to 
sentiments scarcely flattering to the Allies, King 
Constantine personally attended the swearing in 
of the 1915 recruits to the garrison of Athens. 
As he had done to the officers of the 11th Di- 
vision, he made a brief speech on discipline : 

When a soldier does whatever lie pleases and thinks 
he knows best what is good for his country, then woe 
betide such an army, and the country having such an 
army. People will tell you otherwise to mislead you ; 
but you must not believe them, for they are merely 
exploiting patriotism for their own ends ; they are traf- 

340 



VENIZELOS DECLARES REVOLUTION 

fickers of their Fatherland; they seek to commit grave 
offenses under the cloak of patriotism. 

Here in a few words is the distinction between 
Venizelos and his sovereign. 

Not only the king, but every one else in 
Greece agreed with Venizelos that a long con- 
tinuance of the anomalous situation created by 
the refusal of the Entente ministers to recognize 
the Caloguyeropoulos government was intoler- 
able. On September 21, Nicholas Politis, an 
ardent Ententist and supporter of Venizelos, 
and then under-secretary of foreign affairs, went 
to Sir Francis Elliot and assured him informally 
that the Caloguyeropoulos cabinet was honestly 
doing all in its power to bring Greece to the side 
of the Entente in the war, and sounded the 
British minister as to what changes in the cabinet 
would render its composition acceptable to Great 
Britain and France. I, myself, at King Con- 
stantine's suggestion, endeavored to secure from 
Sir Francis some statement of why his govern- 
ment persisted in its strange policy of boycotting 
a minstry pledged to carry out the very desire of 
all the Allies. 

"I am authorized to give no assurances about 
341 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

our attitude," Sir Francis replied. "I am wait- 
ing for instructions." Both the British and 
French ministers reaHzed fully the Greek sover- 
eign's problem in handling the Boule, and the 
necessity which had prompted the inclusion in 
the Caloguyeropoulos cabinet of three ministers 
opposed to war ; but neither was disposed to assist 
the king by counseling the governments of 
Great Britain and France either to recognize 
the cabinet as it stood or to indicate by what 
changes of personnel the cabinet could be made 
acceptable to the Alhes. Ex-Minister of Marine 
Nicholas Stratos at this time was enthusiastically 
fighting, in the Athenian press, a battle for 
Greek intervention. A man of admitted ability, 
he was plainly indicated as a cabinet minister to 
replace one of those to whom the Entente ob- 
jected. Sir Francis Elliot vetoed any sugges- 
tion of Stratos being used as a cabinet minister. 

"The king is not bargaining Greece's entry 
into the war," Stratos declared to me on Septem- 
ber 22. "He is merely being sensible enough 
not to enter until Greece is in a position to be of 
real value to the Allies. We have made our 
proposition to the Entente powers, in which we 

342 



VENIZELOS DECLARES REVOLUTION 

state what we require in the way of equipment, 
unless we would be of more trouble than as- 
sistance. The decision is up to them." 

What took place in Rome at this time, a diplo- 
matic history of the war alone will reveal. The 
impression in Athens was that Italy was at work 
against the acceptance of King Constantine's co- 
operation with the Allies. On September 23 the 
Venizelist newspaper, "Hestia," commonly in- 
spired from the British legation, frankly stated 
that rather than see Greece in the war, Italy, her- 
self, would furnish a contingent of troops for 
Balkan use equivalent to whatever Greece could 
offer. It is not improbable, however, that the 
tergiversation of the Allied governments in re- 
spect to the Caloguyeropoulos cabinet was merely 
to enable the agents of Venizelos to complete 
their preparations for revolution. Certainly 
revolution was not long delayed. Foreign 
Minister Carapanos's note, proposing the mili- 
tary operation of Greece with the Allies, still 
remained unanswered on the desks of the foreign 
ministers of Great Britain, France, and Russia, 
when, under the auspices of the British fleet, a 
revolt broke out in Crete. 

343 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

On September 24 a crisis was reached. King 
Constantine decided to alter the entire cabinet to 
please the Entente, making Admiral Coundou- 
riotis, a devoted Venizelist and an uncompromis- 
ing Ententist, prime minister. To this end he 
summoned Admiral Coundouriotis to the palace 
for the morning of September 25. I saw the 
admiral, myself, the evening before, and talked 
with him of his approaching interview with the 
king. He, as well as Sir Francis Elliot, was 
aware of the king's intentions. That evening, 
also, I had a long talk with King Constantine, 
who told me that he believed he had got at the 
bottom of the Entente's hesitation to accept 
Greece as an ally, and that he was very certain 
of a favorable reply to his proposal within a few 
days. It seemed virtually impossible that any- 
thing could now prevent an agreement between 
Greece and the Allies. Probably only one thing 
could have prevented it — and that thing hap- 
pened in the small hours of September 25. 

Accompanied by a guard of the Anglo-French 
secret police, and convoyed by a French de- 
stroyer, Venizelos, Admiral Coundouriotis and 
a dozen or more followers of the Cretan left 

344 



VENIZELOS DECLARES REVOLUTION 

Athens secretly for Crete to take part in the 
revolution against the constitutional government 
of Greece. I am certain that when I talked with 
Admiral Coundouriotis the previous evening, he 
had no knowledge of this plot. The adventure 
seems to have been undertaken on a moment's 
notice, inspired by information that the king's 
plan of united action with the Allies was on the 
eve of success, and by the knowledge that with its 
success Venizelos's ambitions and the hopes of his 
followers were permanently jeopardized. From 
Canea he issued a proclamation which was merely 
a somewhat more hysterical repetition of his cry 
that King Constantine "adopt his policy" and 
join the Entente. At the same time he called for 
volunteers to rally to him to fight the Bulgarians. 
In reply. Premier Caloguyeropoulos declared to 
me: "The sole question at issue is whether the 
Entente desires the cooperation of Greece with 
the king and the army, or whether they will only 
accept Greece on condition that Venizelos head 
the State." Former Greek Minister to the 
United States, Deputy Agamemnon Schlieman 
put it: "It is a choice between Greece as 
Greece, with our sovereign, our flag, and the 

345 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Greek national spirit, or merely individual 
Greeks, representing no really national purpose, 
fighting under Venizelos at so much a day." 

Venizelos knew as well as any one (indeed 
better) the efforts which had been made to com- 
pass the end which in his proclamation he coun- 
seled his sovereign to achieve. He could not 
have been ignorant that the step he had taken 
in inspiring insurrection among the inhabitants 
of new Greece would serve, more than anything 
else, to render impossible an effective coopera- 
tion between Greece and the Allies. Yet, such 
is the character of the man, that while clamoring 
for action which others were quietly working to 
bring about, he was by his own course making it 
impossible. 



346 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE ENTENTE REFUSES GREECE AS AN ALLY 

The departure of Venizelos changed nothing 
in King Constantine's purpose to join the Allies; 
but it altered materially the attitude of the Allied 
powers toward Greece. They had never really 
wished to work with the King of the Hellenes, 
because Constantine I was devoted heart and soul 
to the interests of his own country, not to the 
interests of the Entente. Venizelos, on the other 
hand, was literally their man, wholly amenable 
to the desires of Great Britain and France. In 
his desperate effort to persuade the Entente not 
to treat with King Constantine, Venizelos un- 
questionably made promises which he must have 
known were far in excess of his abihty to perform. 
Undoubtedly also he expected by his vast claims 
to induce both Great Britain and France to fi- 
nance his revolution on a very large scale. In 
this at least he was successful. It was probable 
also that Great Britain and France were thor- 

347 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

oughly taken in by the confidence with which the 
Cretan spoke of the success of his movement and, 
preferring to secure without condition the co- 
operation of part of the Greek army through 
Venizelos, rather than secure the entire army by 
accepting King Constantine's terms, the Entente 
dehberately chose to foster the revolution in 
Greece. 

In one of his speeches Venizelos spoke of ob- 
taining for General Sarrail an army of one hun- 
dred thousand men, presimiably by stimulating 
desertions from the regular army. For this pur- 
pose money was necessary, and money was given 
him. A soldier in the Greek army receives one 
cent a day when on active service; Venizelos of- 
fered five times as much, together with a cash 
bonus of $5, paid to the soldier on his joining the 
Venizelist movement, as well as the necessary 
travel expenses to Saloniki. A sergeant in the 
Greek army is paid seven cents a day ; with Veni- 
zelos he received 50 cents, and a much greater pos- 
sibility of rapid promotion was held out to him. 
A second lieutenant in the Greek army receives 
$6; with Venizelos his pay was $15.50. A first 
lieutenant jumped from $7.50 to $17.50 by join- 

348 



ENTENTE REFUSES GREECE AS AN ALLY 

ing the Venizelists ; a captain from $8 to $22.50, 
with a bonus, in the case of higher officers, any- 
where from $20 to $100 — sometimes more. In 
this "recruiting" work the Anglo-French secret 
police were exceedingly active, and the British 
and French legations brought pressure to bear 
upon the Greek Government to prevent the ex- 
action of any penalty upon those thus induced to 
desert their country's flag. 

The military organization of Greece naturally 
took steps to prevent desertions from the Greek 
army; but it is only just to the Greeks to say 
that such desertions were comparatively few. In 
six months' time, despite these inducements to 
join Venizelos's forces, the Cretan had obtained 
less than 12,000 men out of the Greek army of 
250,000; less than 200 officers out of 3500 then 
upon active service in the Greek army, and about 
one hundred policemen whom he enrolled as offi- 
cers of his contingent.^ 

The Cretan's manoeuver at first was to declare 
that his movement had no revolutionary char- 
acter. But on his arrival in Saloniki he threw 
off this mask and in a public address referred 

1 See Appendix. 

349 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

to the constitutional government of Greece as 
a "demented monarchy alHed with political cor- 
ruption." The effect of this and similar declara- 
tions was to alienate still more of his followers 
among the thinking people of Greece. His ad- 
herents in Saloniki were, with scarcely an excep- 
tion, recipients of salaries as officers of the "pro- 
visional government" occupying posts the duties 
of which were nominal. In Athens the much- 
heralded Balkan offensive was referred to as the 
"offensive against the ten million drachmae" — 
that sum being the first loan made to the Venize- 
list government by the Entente. The prime 
minister of constitutional Greece receives $160 
a month. Venizelos and his coadjutors. Admiral 
Coundouriotis and General Danglis, drew sal- 
aries of $2400 a month. 

The British and French ministers in Athens 
quietly made clear to King Constantine what 
would be their attitude toward the constitutional 
government of Greece, now that they hoped to 
secure what they desired of Greece through 
Venizelos. The very day of the Cretan's depar- 
ture from Athens, it was informally conveyed to 
King Constantine that the Entente expected of 

350 



ENTENTE REFUSES GREECE AS AN ALLY 

him a declaration in principle of his readiness to 
leave neutrality without conditions, and the 
formation of a national ministry in which the 
Venizelists should be largely represented; in de- 
fault of this, they implied that an Allied control 
of the Greek customs and the confiscation of the 
funds belonging to the Greek Government, then 
on deposit in the banks of France and England, 
might be added to the Allied control of the Greek 
telegraphs, telephones, posts, wireless, railways, 
and police, which they were already exercising. 

To ascertain how much cooperation Venizelos 
would give a national cabinet formed for war, 
King Constantine caused the Cretan to be 
sounded while he was yet in Crete. Three ques- 
tions were asked: 

(l) Does Venizelos insist upon the premier- 
ship? ( 2 ) Will he support a war cabinet ? ( 3 ) 
Will he or some of his followers accept a minority 
representation in such a cabinet, thus sharing the 
responsibility of conducting the war? 

To the first and third questions Venizelos's re- 
ply was negative; but he agreed to support a 
war cabinet. 

This was far from satisfactory to the king. 
351 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Venizelos and his followers, if they remained aloof 
from the conduct of the war, would be in posi- 
tion to visit upon the conservative party the en- 
tire blame should disaster follow the Greek entry 
into hostilities. Having remained outside the 
conduct of the campaign, they would be free to 
criticize everything which might be done. On 
the whole, the king felt that as long as Venizelos 
refused to return to Athens and take up his 
place in the life of the state as a citizen, the leader 
of a political party accepting the full responsi- 
bility of such leadership, the Cretan would re- 
main a menace of revolution at any moment, a 
source of essential weakness to a nation at war 
which it would be the height of risk to tolerate 
in a national crisis. He knew his former first 
minister too well to dream for a moment that, 
given an opportunity by some reverse to the na- 
tional arms to effect a coup d'etat and seize the 
supreme power, the Cretan would be deterred by 
any considerations of patriotism. He believed 
that a man who would deliberately, as a political 
manoeuver, set about splitting the country into 
two hostile camps on the eve of its entrance into 
a life-and-death struggle, was capable of any 

352 



ENTENTE REFUSES GREECE AS AN ALLY 

course for the furtherance of his own ambitions. 

At the same time the Greek monarch was 
causing Venizelos to be sounded, he conferred 
with every man of mihtar}^ and poHtical impor- 
tance in Greece on the same subject. The advice 
given was summed up by General Moscopoulos, 
chief of staff, in a report favoring an early de- 
parture from neutrality. I attended a cabinet 
meeting on September 27, which was held solely 
with this in view. On receipt of these substantia- 
tions of his own judgment, King Constantine, 
relying on the assurances he had already had, both 
from his brothers in Petrograd and London and 
from the Greek minister in Paris just before 
Venizelos's departure, of the favorable reception 
given his proposal to join the Allies, definitely 
decided to discount the formal acceptance of his 
offer of military cooperation, and to set about 
making preparations to that end at once. 

As a first essential step, he charged Nicholas 
Stratos to handle the Boule for war. But Sir 
Francis Elliot promptly nullified this disposition 
as much as possible by refusing to countenance 
Stratos as war minister, the post to which he was 
destined in the war cabinet then under discus- 

353 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

sion. As a military measure, the king likewise 
called certain as yet untrained reserves to the 
colors to receive their military instruction; but 
the British and French ministers vetoed this also, 
as a violation of the ultimatum of June 21. As 
for the navy, in the early hours of the morning of 
September 27, certain Venizelists, aided by the 
Anglo-French secret police, forcibly seized the 
Greek second-class cruiser Hydra and took it to 
join the Allied squadron anchored in Keratsina 
Bay, thus greatly upsetting the organization of 
the entire Hellenic navy. 

Despite these rebuffs in military, political, and 
naval fields, King Constantine persisted in his 
determination to form a war cabinet acceptable 
to the Entente, and to leave neutrality before 
matters should become worse with Rumania. 
To this end, on September 29, he drafted tele- 
grams which he proposed to send to King George, 
President Poincare, and Emperor Nicholas of 
Russia on the occasion of completing his alliance 
with them, and called his brother Prince Andrew 
home from England to take his place with the 
colors. 

Then suddenly, out of a clear sky, came a tele- 
354 



ENTENTE REFUSES GREECE AS AN ALLY 

gram from the Greek minister in Paris reciting 
an informal conversation with Premier Briand 
on the subject of Foreign Minister Carapanos's 
proposals of alliance. Couched in discreet lan- 
guage, as personal advice and not an official com- 
munication, the French premier's message to the 
Greek sovereign was to the effect that, owing to 
the engagements already entered into among the 
Allies, it was impossible to negotiate openly with 
Greece for her acceptance as a full ally ; but that 
if King Constantine were to assume the entire 
responsibility of declaring war on Bulgaria, Great 
Britain and France would then be in a position to 
insist to their Allies upon the admission of 
Greece to the combination on an equitable foot- 
ing. Nothing was guaranteed; nothing even 
promised. Vague allusions to Greece's "legiti- 
mate aspirations" were calculated to dazzle but 
not convince. France and Great Britain were 
ready to declare their intention to assist Greece 
in the peace conference to push her claims to ter- 
ritorial expansion — but no more. There was not 
one word about the condition which the Greek 
monarch had laid down as essential to any dis- 
cussion, namely, a guarantee of the integrity of 

355 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Greece. Premier Briand further explained that 
he had delayed a formal reply to the proposals of 
the Caloguyeropoulos cabinet in the hope that 
King Constantine would himself take the initia- 
tive and, by declaring war on Bulgaria without 
any arrangement with the Entente, place the 
Allies in the presence of a fait accompli. He 
stated that he still hoped the Greek sovereign 
would decide to do this; but that in any case a 
formal reply to the proposals of the Caloguy- 
eropoulos cabinet would be forthcoming in due 
season. 

It is impossible that Premier Briand could have 
been so ignorant of the character of King Con- 
stantine as to suppose for a moment that such 
subtleties as he suggested would appeal to the 
soldier sovereign. Direct and plain spoken to a 
fault himself, Constantine I is not the man to 
play the role in any such evident intrigue among 
the Allies as that the French statesman cast him 
for. He had made a straightforward proposal; 
he expected a straightforward answer. The rev- 
elation of lack of team work among the Allied 
powers which he obtained instead might have 
served a man less personally frank as a warning 

356 



ENTENTE REFUSES GREECE AS AN ALLY 

that he was not being fairly dealt with ; Constan- 
tine of Greece merely dismissed the whole Briand 
proposal as childish. Viewing the situation with 
military eyes he said simply : "Why should I de- 
clare war until I am ready to make war? Let 
them help us to get ready for war, and I shall 
declare war when we are prepared to push it 
through. To make a futile gesture of hostility 
without following it up with appropriate action 
is ridiculous. Certainly the Allies are not going 
to make any such reply as this to our formal pro- 
posals. We have, therefore, merely to get our 
house in order and to wait their official reply." 

In this view of the attitude of the Allies, rea- 
sonable as it might appear, the Greek monarch 
was not sustained by the more astute politicians 
of Greece. A high-placed permanent official, a 
strong partizan of Greek cooperation with the 
Entente, summed up the policy of Great Britain 
and France in far other terms : 

The continuous series of attacks on Greece in the 
London and Paris press have long given evidence that 
the Entente Powers are not seriously treating with us 
for our cooperation in the Balkan battlefield. Con- 
sider the facts : the day the king advised the British 
minister of his intention to leave neutrality, an Allied 

357 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

fleet arrived at Salamis and the unauthorized arrests 
by the Anglo-French secret police began. When Mr. 
Zaimis had almost completed negotiations for Greece's 
joining the Allies, the incident of the "attack" on the 
French legation suddenly occurred and Mr. Zaimis 
resigned in consequence. Mr. Dimitricopoulos, who 
openly stated that he was in favor of Greece's immedi- 
ate departure from neutrality on the side of the Allies, 
was found by the Entente ministers inacceptable as 
premier. The first act of Mr. Caloguyeropoulos was 
to declare categorically Greece's acceptance in princi- 
ple of an entry into the war on the side of the Allies — 
and at once the Allied ministers refused to recognize 
his cabinet. From August 29, when the -king ex- 
pressed his willingness to leave neutrality, he has 
acquiesced in every desire of the Entente Powers. Yet 
meanwhile and while the British and French Govern- 
ments have actually been treating with the king for his 
cooperation, the press in both countries, subject to 
censorship as it is, has conducted the bitterest kind of 
campaign against the sincerity of the king's intentions. 

Venizelos declared on September 20 that he would 
take no steps calculated to divide the country until he 
could see what the Greek government proposed to do ; 
yet a week after the government's formal proposals 
were submitted to the Allied chancelleries, he left, with 
the knowledge and assistance of the Allied ministers, to 
head the insurrection he had inaugurated in Crete. 

What is the clue to this seeming double game toward 
Greece? The explanation is obvious. The Italians 
and Russians have always opposed Greece's coopera- 
tion in the war, the former because they want Greek 
North Epirus — possibly Corfu, also ; the latter because 
they want Greek Thrace, opposite Constantinople. 
As for Great Britain and France, their interest is to 
conserve a great Greece as a buffer to Russia as a 

358 



ENTENTE REFUSES GREECE AS AN ALLY 

Mediterranean power. But they mistrust King Con- 
stantine, believing him pro-German despite his repeated 
assurances and definite acts to the contrary. They 
therefore seem to have decided upon a course of keep- 
ing Greece as great as possible, while lessening in every 
way the prestige of the Greek monarch. A dispassion- 
ate observer would conclude that the Entente Powers 
are working to establish Venizelos — the imperialist 
advocate of a greater Greece — in complete control of 
the country, rather than to obtain the military co- 
operation of Greece in the war. 

It will only be upon the failure of the Venizelist 
movement — which now seems inevitable — that the Allies 
will accept Greece to their number, with King Constan- 
tine to head the Greek armies. It is not we who are 
delaying Greece's entry into the war, but the Entente 
Powers themselves. 

At the same time that M. Briand's message 
reached King Constantine, the British naval au- 
thorities quietly, without declaring a blockade, 
set about stopping and retaining at Gibraltar 
or Malta all foodstuffs or coal vessels bound for 
Greece. Admiral Dartige du Fournet also, on 
this occasion, gave birth to the first of a large 
family of notes addressed to the Greek Govern- 
ment in which simply as "commanding the Allied 
forces of the Mediterranean," he demanded the 
expulsion within five days of a number of per- 
sons, including Greek subjects, a list of whom 
he appended to his note. 

359 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Just what other authority than the guns of his 
battleships the admiral of a friendly fleet might 
have for issuing orders to a sovereign govern- 
ment did not appear in the note, nor did it 
seem to trouble the champions of the liberties of 
small states. Before the prescribed delay had 
expired, the Allied ministers in Athens instructed 
their control officers to stop the sending of any 
official cipher messages between the Greek Gov- 
ernment and its representatives abroad, save those 
addressed to Allied countries. It was thus im- 
possible for the Greek Government to communi- 
cate with its diplomatic representative in Wash- 
ington, save with the full knowledge of the Allies 
and governed by their interested censorship. It 
is a significant matter, this; for much of the mis- 
taken impression of events in the near East dur- 
ing the months which followed was spread in the 
United States through a propaganda to which 
the constitutional government of Greece had not 
even the physical means of replying. It was evi- 
dent at once from these various measures taken by 
the Allied governments that pressure was to be 
put upon Greece to induce King Constantine to 

360 



ENTENTE REFUSES GREECE AS AN ALLY 

accept M. Briand's suggestion of making war at 
once, prepared or unprepared. 

Nor was Venizelos idle. From Crete, where 
fully a third of his countrymen retired to the 
mountains and refused to recognize his revolu- 
tionary authority, he proceeded to Chios and 
Lesbos, in each of which islands he made speeches 
of an increasingly inflammatory character, evok- 
ing shouts of "Down with the king!" from his au- 
diences. On his arrival at Saloniki he at once set 
about the formation of a "provisional govern- 
ment," consisting of himself and two figureheads, 
Admiral Coundouriotis and General Danglis. 
The campaign to recruit the army of 100,000 
men he had promised the Allies began immedi- 
ately. At the same time, he bent all his energies 
to secure for his "provisional government" official 
recognition from the Entente powers and the 
United States and, more important still, to ob- 
tain a large loan from the Allies, that with money 
in his coffers he might hold his followers together. 

To add to the confusion of the situation, early 
in October, 1916, while King Constantine still 
awaited an official reply to his government's of- 

361 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

ficial proposal of cooperation with the Entente, 
the Italians took a hand in embroiling matters by 
advancing from Santa Quaranta, on the coast 
of Greek Epirus just opposite Corfu, to Arguye- 
rocastro and toward Janina. This was by no 
means in the direction of the Austrians and Bul- 
gars, but rather toward the heart of old Greece. 
Plainly the Italians, knowing the plans of their 
Allies in regard to the Venizelist revolution, 
feared that France and Great Britain might 
promise the "provisional government" conces- 
sions which would upset Italian ambitions in the 
near East. It is not improbable that their sur- 
mise was correct. 

While all these events, and especially the 
Italian advance, disturbed the Greeks greatly, 
none of them in the least afffected the equanimity 
of the Greek monarch. Rumania was faring 
badly at the hands of Generals von Mackensen 
and von Falkenhayn. King Constantine, al- 
ways the soldier, felt that as affairs in Rumania 
grew worse, the Allies would realize the folly of 
playing at internal politics in Greece on the 
chance of obtaining an army through Venizelos, 
and would accept his proposal to furnish them 

363 



ENTENTE REFUSES GREECE AS AN ALLY 

an army already trained and organized and lack- 
ing only certain equipment, which any force 
Venizelos might raise would lack still more. 
With this in view he planned a general mobiliza- 
tion for October 8. He changed none of his 
preparations to join the Allies on account of M. 
Briand's suggestion. On the contrary, through 
Dr. Streit he urged the Athenian press to mod- 
eration in dealing with Venizelos, and set about 
the formation of a cabinet which the Allies would 
recognize, and to which the formal reply of the 
Entente to his proposal could be delivered. 

The Caloguyeropoulos cabinet resigned on 
October 3. Though it failed of its mission to 
bring Greece into the war, it would scarcely be 
fair to charge the failure either to King Con- 
stantine or to Prime Minister Caloguyeropoulos. 
The testimony of Nicholas Politis on this point is 
precious. Under Mr. Caloguyeropoulos he had 
striven without avail to persuade Sir Francis 
Elliot that the Government was honestly in favor 
of leaving neutrality on the side of the Entente. 
Together with another Ententist in the ministry 
for foreign affairs of Greece, Mr. George Carad- 
jas, he had done all he could to convince the 

363 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Allied diplomatists that they were committing 
the greatest political blunder of the war in boy- 
cotting the Caloguyeropoulos cabinet. When 
Sir Francis and M. Guillemin remained obdurate, 
he finally gave up his attempt and went to 
Saloniki, where he joined Venizelos as minister 
for foreign affairs of the "provisional govern- 
ment." His judgment may therefore be taken 
as somewhat more than impartial toward the 
policy of the Allies. He made the following 
statement: ^ 

The Caloguyeropoulos ministry was in favor of in- 
tervention. The Hellenic Government, led by Mr. 
Caloguyeropoulos, submitted to the Entente legations 
Greece's proposals for an immediate participation in 
the war, and King Constantine approved this course of 
the Government. Neither the fact that Mr. Calo- 
guyeropoulos had been known throughout his political 
life as an ardent friend of France, nor that he was 
assisted in the ministry by such Francophiles as Mr. 
Carapanos and others, moved the Entente to change 
their views about his cabinet. Once having pronounced 
the whole ministry pro-German, the Entente ministers 
dared not admit their error. 

1 Elephtheros lypos (Venizelist), November 9, 1916. 



364 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE SEIZURE OF THE GREEK FLEET 

After some difficulty, the distinguished savant, 
Professor Spyridon Lambros, accepted the premi- 
ership and formed a cabinet which the AUied min- 
isters recognized, although they accompanied the 
recognition with an admonition that the new gov- 
ernment was to exercise only the nominal powers 
provided by the ultimatum of June 21. The 
Lambros government was to be as constitution- 
ally unable to conduct war as the Caloguyero- 
poulos cabinet had been. A general mobiliza- 
tion in compliance with Premier Briand's sugges- 
tion was, therefore, out of the question. Simul- 
taneously with their recognition of the new cab- 
inet, moreover, the British and French ministers 
telegraphed their respective governments the ad- 
vice to reply to King Constantine's proposal of 
alliance in the following sense : 

That while the form in which the proposal is made 
is not acceptable, and the question of the Bulgarian 

365 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

occupation of Greek soil is to be regarded as a purely 
Greek matter in which the Allied Powers are not con- 
cerned/ nevertheless, should Greece voluntarily leave 
neutrality, declare war on Bulgaria and decree a gen- 
eral mobilization, the Allies would be disposed to fur- 
nish every assistance to drive Greece's enemy from her 
territory, as well as to give other material proofs of 
the benevolent interest of the Allies in the welfare of 
Greece. 

To this promising suggestion, a qualifying 
clause was added: 

It is understood, however, that these diplomatic as- 
surances are not in any way to interfere with the in- 
structions already given the admiral of the Allied fleet 
to assure by all necessary measures the safety of the 
Allied Orient armies. 

The vital question, therefore, in determining 
King Constantine's action was to ascertain pre- 
cisely what instructions had been given Admiral 
Dartige du Fournet, and to what extent they 
might nullify "these diplomatic assurances." 
But before any revealing event could occur, 
Prince Andrew arrived from London and made 
his report upon opinion in Great Britain toward 
King Constantine's proposal of military coopera- 
tion with the Allies. Exceedinglj^ plain spoken, 

1 This is rather astonishing In view of the stir which had 
been made in London and Paris over the Bulgarian occupation 
of Fort Rupel and Cavalla. 

366 



THE SEIZURE OF THE GREEK FLEET 

the king's brother minced no words. He brought 
with him a sheaf of cuttings from British news- 
papers, all assaihng the Greek monarch in more 
or less violent terms. 

"There's a censorship in England," he said, 
"and nothing is published without the consent of 
the Government. Look at this stuff they have 
let be spread all over the world, while they had 
your proposition under consideration! If they 
are playing fair with you, they have a queer way 
of showing it." 

The King called a crown council at once, and 
put everything before that assembly of former 
prime ministers of Greece. He explained his 
abiding intention to join the Allies if he could 
do so on terms not prejudicial to the integrity 
and reasonable security of his country; he sug- 
gested that it would be inappropriate to discuss 
at this time, and before victory, the illusory ter- 
ritorial compensations to which M. Briand re- 
ferred in his message; he reported his eifort to 
decree a partial mobilization a fortnight previ- 
iously, and the veto the British and French min- 
isters in Athens had put upon that project; he 
expressed his conviction that, in view of the re- 

367 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

verses in Rumania, the Allies must shortly make 
a formal reply to his offer and, finally, he stated 
that on receipt of a favorable reply, he was ready 
to execute his function as head of the Hellenic 
state by declaring war on Bulgaria at once. The 
crown council approved this program in full. 

While this council was sitting, discussing thus 
frankly the king's plans to join the Allies, a note 
from Admiral Dartige du Fournet was waiting 
at the ministry for foreign affairs that was to 
put an end once and for all to any question of 
what the Admiral's special instructions were in 
respect to Greece. He demanded the surrender 
to him by the following noon, October 11, of 
the entire Greek light flotilla of six torpedo boats, 
fourteen destroyers, the flagship of the flotilla, 
the CanariSj the protected cruiser Helli, the two 
Greek submarines, and even the unarmed des- 
patch vessel Coriolanus, sole means of communi- 
cation between the Pirgeus and the Greek naval 
arsenal at Salamis. The only reason given for 
the demand was "the safety of the Allied fleet." 
Of the Greek navy only the two battleships, the 
Lemnos ^ and the KilkisJ^ and the armored cruiser 

1 Ex-Mississippi, U. S. N. 2 Ex-Idaho, U. S. N. 

368 



THE SEIZURE OF THE GREEK FLEET 

Georgios Averoffj were to remain under the 
Greek flag. Some 1500 Greek sailors were to 
be set ashore on twelve hours' notice, exiled from 
the ships which they had manned, in 1912, to 
victory over the hated Turk. 

It is impossible to picture the effect of this 
demand upon the Greeks without reducing it to 
terms of the effect a similar demand by Great 
Britain, France, and Russia would have upon the 
people of the United States. Indeed, in Greece 
the effect was probably greater, for the Greeks 
are a maritime people, and their great pride was 
their little navy. The Allied ministers in Athens 
claimed knowledge of a plot on the part of certain 
Greek naval officers to take the Greek fleet to 
Constantinople and to deliver it over to the 
Turks. There is something altogether too fan- 
tastic about this story to inspire belief. The ex- 
planation commonly credited in Athens is more 
reasonable. The "recruits" to the Venizelist 
movement from the out islands were not material- 
izing. With the guns of the Greek fleet to per- 
suade the inhabitants of the islands to enlist in 
his embryo army, as yet merely a handful in 
size, the Cretan felt that he could accomplish 

369 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

something. Indeed later, in a public statement 
given on December 30, 1916, Venizelos frankly 
confessed that only by means of the fleet could 
he establish his control of the islands he had 
claimed were spontaneous adherents of his revo- 
lutionary government/ 

A second thing we want of the Entente is the Greek 
navy, which the Entente seized from the royalist ma- 
rine. A nationalist battleship sailing among the Greek 
islands and into the ports of old Greece would be more 
effective in stamping out royalist sentiment than would 
years of talk. We have told the people of the islands 
that we and the Entente are in firm accord; but the 
islanders ask, "Where is the Greek fleet?" 

Another crown council was hastily called, and 
discussed the Admiral's demand until four in 
the morning. Then only did the insistence of 
King Constantine that whatever the Allies 
wanted be accorded them, prevail against the ad- 
vice to resist. "It does not matter," said the 
Greek sovereign over and over again. "Soon we 
shall all be allies together, and our fleet will be 
returned to us." 

I was aboard the flagship Canaris the following 
morning when Admiral Ipitis had the crews 
piped to quarters and read the order of the day 

1 See Appendix. 

370 



THE SEIZURE OF THE GREEK FLEET 

addressed to the coiiunanders of the Greek ships 
of war: 

"Constrained by the mighty of the earth, in 
grief we order you to abandon your ships before 
midday, accompanied by your men." 

When the order had been read the admiral an- 
nounced that, by order of King Constantine, com- 
mander-in-chief of the naval forces of Greece, 
every man who wished to remain with his ship, 
and so to join the Allies, was free to do so. 
While he was speaking, the men stood rigid. 
The tears streamed down the faces of many. I 
saw even one Englishman, a member of the 
British naval mission to Greece, who was crying 
just as were his Greek comrades. When the 
admiral had finished his announcement, there was 
a pause. Not a man stepped out of line to re- 
main with the ships when they should pass into 
the hands of the French. 

At a signal, the blue and white flag of Hellas 
was lowered on all the ships and rolled up and 
given to the commander. The first officer went 
below and unscrewed from the wall the portrait 
of King Constantine that hangs in the ward room 
of every vessel in the Greek navy. The chaplain 

371 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

took down the sacred icon before which in every 
Greek ship burns the lamp of faith. At this 
juncture a French cutter came alongside the flag- 
ship and a French officer asked why the Greek 
flag was being lowered. The officer of the watch 
replied shortly, "The admiral's orders." The 
French cutter shoved off and returned to its flag- 
ship, which stood by, cleared for action, and cov- 
ering the tiny Greek fleet with guns set for a 
broadside. At the opposite end of the little bay, 
another Allied warship was anchored, likewise 
cleared for action, with her great guns also 
trained menacingly on the Greek flotilla. 

An hour before the time set for delivery, the 
crews of every vessel of those to be surrendered 
took to the boats, each commander the last to 
leave his ship, the flag rolled up under his arm. 
They were put ashore at Scaramanga, opposite 
the arsenal, where the men gathered in silent 
groups to watch the fate of their ships, their sea 
chests piled about them. On the stroke of noon, 
the French arrived with destroyers and tugs and 
took possession of the deserted fleet. 

The French were in bad temper, and exceed- 
ingly nervous. Evidently they had expected one 

312 



THE SEIZURE OF THE GREEK FLEET 

of two things — either that at the command to 
leave their vessels the great majority of the Greek 
sailors would remain on board and join the Allied 
squadron, or that some loyaHst officer would seek 
to destroy his vessel rather than give it up. It 
is a striking evidence of the devotion and disci- 
pline of the Greek navy that neither happened. 
Twenty-four hours before, eighty per cent, of the 
Greek navy had been profoundly pro-English 
and eager to fight beside the Allies. The Greek 
navy is British trained. During the war with 
Turkey Admiral Cardale, a British officer, had 
served with that very light flotilla, and most of 
the men had served under him and felt the great- 
est affection for him. But their desire to fight 
beside the Allies was as free Greeks, on their 
own ships, under their own flag, and the com- 
mand of their own king, not as outsiders — ^volun- 
teers or insurgents. This is as true of the army 
as of the navy. It is that feeling of loyalty to 
Greece more than anything else that the Alhes 
have never understood in dealing with the Greeks. 
And that, more than anything else, is why they 
have failed in all their diplomacy in Greece. 
The deserted ships were speedily towed out 
373 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

from their anchorage and moored where the Al- 
lied fleet surrounded them. From the shore, the 
Greek sailors in silence watched the boats as, one 
by one, they were taken away. As the Canaris 
was towed out, one of them plucked the ribbon 
from his hat and tore it into shreds. It bore in 
gold letters the najne of his ship — Canaris. 

"The Canaris is no more," he said, a quick sob 
catching his voice. 

Aboard the Lemnos I watched the sad proces- 
sion with one of the officers of the battleship. 
There were tears on his cheeks, too. When the 
last ship had gone, he waved his arm at seven 
huge Allied battleships, at one end of the bay, 
and three at the other. Any one of these could 
have destroyed the entire Greek flotilla with a 
few shots. A swarm of Allied destroyers com- 
pletely hemmed in the pitiful little Greek fleet as 
it had lain hugging the shore under the shadow 
of the arsenal. 

"My God!" he cried bitterly, "what could we 
ever have done to them ! Why do they think they 
have to take away our honor, too !" 

That evening, when the sailors of the fleet 
reached Athens, an immense demonstration 

374 




"One element of possible conciliation" 
REAR ADMIRAL HUBERT CARDALE, R.H.N. 
Acting Head of the British Naval Mission in Greece 



THE SEIZURE OF THE GREEK FLEET 

sprang into being, spontaneously. The sailors 
were joined by thousands of others and together 
they all marched through the streets carrying a 
Hellenic flag. Before a rifle range on Stadium 
Street an American flag was displayed. They 
plucked it from the wall and placed it beside the 
white and blue of Greece and swept along behind 
the two colors, to the American legation. The 
leaders of the crowd were petty oflicers and plain 
seamen of the Greek navy, who spoke the Eng- 
lish they had learned from their British training 
oflicers. They felt somehow that because two 
of their battleships had once been American, the 
United States, too, might have something to say 
about their forcible sequestration by warring 
powers. They wanted to tell the American min- 
ister about it, and beg his mediation with the 
Allies to get their ships back. 

It was a simple, childish idea, and the men who 
conceived it were imbued with the childlike feel- 
ing that they had been wronged, and that Amer- 
ica, the great champion of the weak, could set 
their wrong right again. But the legation was 
closed. From the Athenian Club across the 
street, Mr. Droppers, the minister, watched the 

377 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

profoundly moving demonstration without re- 
vealing his presence, although he admitted that it 
was a very orderly demonstration. Ultimately, 
the crowd went elsewhere, discouraged, but still 
bearing the American and Greek flags before 
them. The following morning a committee 
waited upon Mr. Droppers and presented him 
a set of resolutions, asking that the President of 
the United States take cognizance of the extraor- 
dinary circumstance that three great powers 
had combined by the threat of force to seize al- 
most the entire navy of a small, neutral state. 
This was but one of the manj?- manifestations of 
the heartsoreness of the Greeks. Everywhere I 
saw Greek sailors whom I knew, and knew to 
have been passionately in favor of joining the 
Allies, who had been Venizelists, as well; they 
had changed. Not a man of them but was deeply 
resentful toward the British and French, and in- 
credibly bitter toward Venizelos, whom they held 
responsible for deceiving the Allies as to the 
intentions of the Greek navy. 

The same day that the Greek light flotilla was 
seized by Admiral Dartige du Fournet, the 
Allied consuls in Crete formally recognized the 

378 



THE SEIZURE OF THE GREEK FLEET 

"provisional government" in the island, and 
Venizelos formed a "cabinet" in Saloniki. 
Twelve ministerial portfolios, with no duties to 
speak of attached, were confided to obscure poli- 
ticians and newspaper editors who had conducted 
the Venizelist propaganda. If there were no 
duties for these "ministers" to perform, there 
were nevertheless salaries to draw. Constitu- 
tional Greece has but nine cabinet ministers, 
drawing each $160 per month; the "provisional 
government" boasted twelve administrators with 
nothing to administrate, each drawing $1600 per 
month for the service — a difference, counting the 
salaries of Venizelos and his two coadjutors, of 
$300,520 per annum, the price in ministerial sal- 
aries alone of the Saloniki government, in excess 
of the cost of maintaining the government of 
constitutional Greece. 

The following day Admiral Dartige du Four- 
net presented a supplementary note, requiring 
that the guns of the Lemnos, Kilkis, and Georg- 
ios Aver of be rendered useless by delivering up 
their breech-blocks; and that their crews be re- 
duced to one third strength ; and that all the bat- 
teries defending the Piraeus be surrendered to 

579 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

French gunners. He demanded, further, full 
maritime and military jurisdiction over the port 
of the Piraeus and, finally, complete control of 
the police and of the administration of the Athens- 
Saloniki railway. These demands were based 
on "the protection of the flanks of the Allied 
Orient armies at Saloniki." Naturally, such an 
excuse struck the Greek people as grotesque. 
To any Greek, or indeed, to any one familiar with 
Greek history, the idea of an army in Macedonia 
in peril from the attack of an inferior force from 
Thessaly, is ridiculous. There are but two passes 
to the north : the Vale of Tempe, which could be 
held by a single machine gun against an army 
corps, and the Petras defile, over the western 
slopes of Mt. Olympus, through which Xerxes 
invaded Thessaly, and which a battery of field 
artillery could readily defend against an invading 
army. 

It was therefore necessary to seek another and 
likelier reason for these latest requirements of the 
admiral in command of the Allied squadron. It 
appeared from the note itself in the shape of the 
demand for the complete control of the Greek 
police. Since Venizelos's departure, the Allied 

380 



THE SEIZURE OF THE GREEK FLEET 

diplomatic authorities in Athens had been in- 
creasingly active in stimulating the "recruiting 
of volunteers" to the Venizelist army. The 
French minister had even, on one occasion, fur- 
nished an armed guard of French marines to 
conduct a few cadets and Greek policemen 
through the streets of Athens to the Piraeus, to 
embark for Saloniki, with the idea of thus im- 
pressing the Athenians with the official sanction 
given by the Allies to desertion from the Greek 
service to join Sarr ail's forces. The Anglo- 
French secret police conducted regular bureaus 
of "recruitment." Every evening when the 
streets of Athens were most crowded, an auto- 
mobile of the Anglo-French secret police whirled 
through Stadium Street at terrific speed, bearing 
on their way to join Venizelos a few soldiers, 
already half drunk on the money paid them to 
risk their skins fighting for the Alhes. As the 
same high permanent official already quoted put 
it: "A dispassionate observer would conclude 
that the Entente powers are bending every en- 
ergy to estabhsh Venizelos in complete control of 
Greece, not to secure the military cooperation of 
Greece in the war." It was precisely this inter- 

381 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

pretation which the people of Athens put upon 
the French admiral's latest demands. 

King Constantine was anxious to avoid any 
untoward incident which might give rise to fur- 
ther oppressive measures of control. He there- 
fore turned the dispossessed sailors of the fleet 
into soldiers, and set them to policing Athens 
and the Piraeus. To crystallize the spirit of dis- 
cipline and esprit de corps among the sailors in 
this new function, he reviewed them in person on 
October 16. 

Tens of thousands of men, women, and children 
gathered in the Champs de Mars to witness the 
ceremony. Admiral Damianos, minister of ma- 
rine, read a royal order of the day addressed to 
"officers, petty officers, and sailors," and con- 
ceived in the exalted style of Greek public ad- 
dresses : 

In these days there is bitterness still upon your lips ; 
each hour new wounds drain all hearts — those hearts 
that in pride saw of old but one Greece, honored and 
victorious. In these days my government has been 
constrained to order you to quit those ships aboard 
which you brought Hberty to our enslaved brothers. 

You have come here with souls bleeding and with 
tears in your eyes, but without one single defection 
from your ranks, to take your place beside your king. 
I thank you and I congratulate you, my faithful sailors 

382 



THE SEIZURE OF THE GREEK FLEET 

— not as king and commander-in-chief of the navy, but 
in the name of the Fatherland which you adore, and for 
which you have given so much in sacrifice. 

I pray that our dearest vow may speedily be ful- 
filled, and that the blessed hour may be at hand when 
you shall again take aboard your ships the sacred 
icons, that have watched over you in the past and that 
shall watch over you in the future, and the glorious 
flags, that they may once more float to the breeze of 
Hellenic seas and bring consolation and hope to every 
Hellenic heart, for king and country. 

It seems difficult to believe that this oratorical 
flight, so Greek in its character, was hailed in 
France and England as proof positive of King 
Constantine's hostihty to the Entente and his 
scarcely concealed efforts to incite his people to 
attack the Allies! Certainly the Greeks assem- 
bled in the Champs de Mars did not think so. 
To them, it was a mere call upon their loyalty, 
and they responded as one man. Scarcely had 
the review of the sailors ended when King Con- 
stantine, on horseback, rode unaccompanied into 
the crowd surrounding the great military exer- 
cise field. Neither aide nor orderly rode with 
him. Not a plain-clothes man was anywhere 
near. With a single gesture, he commanded his 
entourage to remain where they were, and gave 
himself up to his people. 

S83 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

They greeted him as one of themselves, but 
with a certain reverence, too. They pressed 
about him, striving to touch his person with eager 
hands — to touch his saddle or even the horse that 
bore him. They clung to his stirrup and let 
themselves be dragged along as he rode slowly 
back and forth through the crowd. Now and 
then he spied a soldier whom he had known at 
Saloniki or Janina, and called him by name, ask- 
ing after the wife and babies; now and then he 
sharply commanded the pressing multitude to 
give way to let through some mother with a child 
in arms or some old woman, whose shoulder he 
bent down to pat affectionately. 

"The koumharos! the koumharos!" was the cry 
in every mouth. "Long hve the koumharos!" 

Not since Napoleon's time has any ruler in the 
world gone so freely and so blithely among his 
people as Constantine I on that day. The crowd 
was full of men who had been Venizelists — would 
again be Venizelists, if Venizelos should succeed ; 
and Venizelos himself, their leader, was now ar- 
rayed in revolution against the man who rode 
among them. Months of the bitterest denuncia- 
tion from press and platform had fired hatreds 

384* 



THE SEIZURE OF THE GREEK FLEET 

in the breasts of these quick-hating people that 
might easily have found expression in the stroke 
of a dagger or a pistol shot. Not a hand was 
raised save in blessing. And the man who had 
dared to shout "Down with the king!" at that 
moment would have been literally torn to pieces 
by the crowd. 

That is what the Greek people think of their 
sovereign ! 

Princess Ahce of Battenberg summed up the 
Greek attitude toward King Constantine in a 
few words: 

He is a brave and inspired soldier, who has led the 
Greek people to victory ; and they adore him for it. 
Even those who to-day are in insurrection against the 
crown, will return to loyal allegiance the moment the 
foreign influence is lifted from them. The people of 
Greece almost worship their king, and the great mis- 
take our people^ have made has been to assume the 
contrary and to protect and foster a revolution against 
him. Had they spent a quarter of the time and good- 
will seeking to come to an understanding with him that 
they have spent in helping to build up a revolutionary 
movement directed against him, none of the sad events 
of the last few months would have occurred, and he and 
they long since would have been working in perfect 
harmony. 

1 The English, Princess Alice is an Englishwoman. 

385 



CHAPTER XXIII 

THE VENIZELIST INVASION OF OLD GREECE 

On October 13, I had had a long talk with 
King Constantine. He was fully cognizant of 
the blow the French admiral's seizure of the 
Greek fleet had dealt his hopes of an arrange- 
ment with the Allies, and by no means ignorant 
of their preference for dealing with Venizelos 
rather than with the constitutional government 
of Greece. He asked me frankly, with that di- 
rectness so characteristic of him, what was wrong. 
I answered him as frankly. 

"They do not trust you. Sire," I said. "They 
say that they are afraid that your armies will 
attack Sarrail's forces in the rear and catch him 
between the Greeks and the. Bulgarians." 

"They must have lost their heads," he rejoined. 
"Any one who knows the lay of the land knows 
that that is militarily impossible. However, do 
you think it would help to dissipate that impres- 

386 



VENIZELIST INVASION OF OLD GREECE 

sion if I offered to withdraw all my troops, in 
excess of peace strength, from Thessaly?" 

I told him I thought it would, and informed 
Sir Francis Elliot of the king's intention. On 
the evening of King Constantine's review of his 
sailors, however, the French admiral seized the 
occasion to land several platoons of marines with 
machine guns, and march them to Athens. The 
ostensible excuse was that the Greek monarch's 
addi'ess to the dispossessed crews of the Greek 
warships was of so inflammatory a nature as to 
endanger the general peace, and that the marines 
were debarked to assist the Greek police in main- 
taining order. It was indeed with great diffi- 
culty that order was maintained following this 
landing of foreign troops upon neutral soil, so 
great was the resentment of the Greeks against 
a step which they, not without reason it must be 
admitted, considered wholly unnecessary. 

The landing force occupied first the municipal 
theater, where a cordon of Greek marines blocked 
the surrounding streets to prevent any hostile 
manifestation. Later, the Greek Government 
offered them various buildings where they could 
be comfortably housed. But the French admiral 

387 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

insisted upon quartering his men in the Zappeion 
exposition building, where there was neither 
water nor any other provision for meeting the 
needs of so large a force. The Zappeion build- 
ing, however, had the advantage of being within 
three hundred yards of King Constantine's pal- 
ace, on the opposite side from the French lega- 
tion, where another contingent of French marines 
was already quartered. The Greek sovereign 
was thus surrounded on two sides by an armed 
foreign force. 

The patrols of the French marines through the 
streets of Athens, far from impressing the popu- 
lation with the might of the Allies, as was evi- 
dently one of the intentions of the landing, 
rendered both the marines themselves and those 
who had sent them ashore ridiculous. For the 
Greek Government was not ignorant that the 
moving purpose of landing the troops was prob- 
ably to provoke some sort of a hostile demon- 
stration which could be seized upon by the French 
admiral as an occasion for taking charge of the 
Greek capital in force. To avoid such a con- 
tingency, the strictest guard of the streets of the 
city was kept by the Greeks. Whenever a 

388 



VENIZELIST INVASION OF OLD GREECE 

French patrol of thirty men passed through the 
streets on its ostensible mission of maintaining 
order, a Greek cavalry patrol of four times the 
strength guarded it on all sides, to prevent any 
hothead from doing something to precipitate a 
conflict. It is indicative of the point of hysteria 
to which the British and Fi*ench in Athens had 
worked themselves, that few saw the humor of 
a situation in which the Greeks were compelled 
to call out a large military force to guard the 
guards set by the French admiral to maintain 
order in a perfectly calm city. The same high 
Greek official previously quoted said in regard 
to this matter : 

Far from promoting quiet, the mere presence of for- 
eign troops in Athens and the Piraeus is the greatest 
possible incentive to trouble. It is precisely as if a 
detachment of Japanese marines had been landed in 
New York to assist the local police at the time of the 
activities of the gunmen — and we feel just that way 
about it. What is worse, if we concentrate troops in 
Athens to prevent trouble, the British and French 
ministers will say that we are preparing to attack 
them ; if we don't they will say that we are incapable of 
keeping order. . . . With a mammoth foreign fleet 
threatening the Piraeus and a thousand odd marines 
quartered in our capital, it is doubtful if either Greece 
or many Greeks can now be induced to join the Allies. 

King Constantine was not of this opinion. He 
389 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

called Sir Francis Elliot to the palace to inform 
him of his intention, as a convincing proof of 
good faith, to withdraw all the Greek troops over 
peace strength from Thessaly to the Greek prov- 
inces bordering on the Gulf of Corinth, thus dis- 
posing of any even chimeric possibility of danger 
to General Sarrail's rear. No sooner had he 
done this than General Bousquier, the French 
military attache, presented a formal demand on 
the part of France and Great Britain that these 
troops be withdrawn from Thessaly, not merely 
to ^tolia, Lokris, Phokis, Attica, and Boeotia as 
the Greek monarch had proposed, but to the 
Peloponnesus, where the Allied fleet could hold 
them virtually imprisoned on an island. At the 
same time, the Allied police control officer in- 
formed the editors of all save the Venizelist news- 
papers that the French would thereafter exercise 
a censorship of the press, in violation of the fun- 
damental law of Greece. Regarding these 
manceuvers of the Entente, King Constantine 
expressed himself pointedly. 

"My brother realizes that it is reasonable that 
Sarrail's flank should be protected against even 
the vaguest possibility of attack," Prince Andrew 

390 



VENIZELIST INVASION OF OLD GREECE 

told me. "While he has given his word that the 
Allied troops will not be attacked, and while it 
is militarily impossible for our army to march 
against Sarr ail's, still the king has been ready 
to and has offered of his own accord to with- 
draw the bulk of his troops from Thessaly, in 
order to set any latent fears at rest, and as an 
earnest of his sincerity in dealing with the En- 
tente. Instead of accepting this in the frank 
spirit in which it is offered, the Entente now 
demand that the king so dispose of two army 
corps as practically to lock them up in a concen- 
tration camp. 

"Sir Francis seems to have indicated the real 
purpose of all this business when he asked the 
king if it were not possible to call Venizelos back 
as prime minister. The king replied: 'You 
executed Casement as a traitor because he merely 
tried to separate Ireland from England. Ven- 
izelos has actually — ^though I believe only tem- 
porarily — separated Crete, some of the ^gean 
islands and part of Macedonia from the rest of 
Greece. After all, Ireland is not England; but 
the inhabitants of Crete, the ^gean islands and 
Macedonia are Greeks. Great Britain can no 

391 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

more expect me to make Venizelos premier than 
England could have made Casement viceroy of 
Ireland.' " 

In substantiation of this impression that Great 
Britain and France were working solely to im- 
pose Venizelos upon Greece as a sort of dictator 
and pro-consul for the Allied powers at whatever 
cost, came certain unquestionable information 
which I received at this juncture from a member 
of one of the Allied legations. He came to me 
of his own accord, and spoke with complete can- 
dor. 

"I think we are blindly going from injustice to 
worse," he said, "because no one in Paris or Lon- 
don has the courage to admit that Venizelos has 
been a bad venture, and that we should throw 
him over and reach an understanding with the 
king. On the contrary, we are going to de- 
throne the king — ^perhaps not at once, but ulti- 
mately. I know, and I think the Government 
knows, that the king has been right all along — 
about the Dardanelles, about Serbia, Saloniki, 
Rumania, Venizelos, and everything else. And 
we have been wrong. But we feel that to admit 
it now would mean the fall of every Allied gov- 

392 



VENIZELIST INVASION OF OLD GREECE 

ernment, and upset the whole conduct of the war. 
We dare not risk the effect of that upon the 
neutrals. Therefore King Constantine must 
give way. It is unjust, if you like, but it is 
going to be done. You can tell him so, if you 
wish." 

I did. At once King Constantine sent for 
each of the Entente ministers in turn, and once 
again went openly and loyally over the same 
ground he had already covered with generals 
Kitchener, de Castelnau, Sarrail, Mahon, and 
with M. Denys Cochin. Following the first of 
these conversations, the king decreed the reduc- 
tion of the Greek forces under arms from 60,000 
to 34,000. The end of Rumania was already in 
sight. Though the dilatory tactics of the En- 
tente in treating with the Greek monarch's offer 
of cooperation had now made such cooperation 
of little practical value. King Constantine did 
not withdraw his offer, to which as yet he 
had had no formal reply. 

Italian and Russian counsel prevailed in the 
Allied conference then being held at Boulogne, 
where the entire Balkan situation was threshed 
out. As a result, the representatives of the Al- 

393 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

lied powers decided not to recognize the Venize- 
list "provisional government," which an Italian 
diplomat described as having been of more em- 
barrassment than assistance to the Allies. Even 
M. Guillemin spoke warmly of the "loyal declar- 
ations by the Greek sovereign of his sentiments 
toward the Entente." Nicholas Stratos, the 
leader of the "king's party" for war in Greece 
declared: "Now that the irritations due to the 
mutual distrust of one another on the part of 
King Constantine and the Entente are out of the 
way, we can go to work negotiating Greece's join- 
ing the Allies as a nation and a people, not in the 
Venizelos fashion, as individuals." Most signifi- 
cant of all, the representatives in Athens of 
Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria made definite 
overtures to the United States to take charge of 
their interests in Greece should Greece leave 
neutrality. Once more all seemed happily ar- 
ranged, but those who had followed events before 
began to question what new action Venizelos 
would take to prevent the final consummation of 
an understanding between the Greek king and 
the Allies. 

They had not long to wait. Scarcely had King 
394 



VENIZELIST INVASION OF OLD GREECE 

Constantine ended his conversations with the 
British, French, Russian, and Itahan ministers 
and Admiral Dartige du Fournet, when, on Oc- 
tober 28, a battalion of Venizehst troops crossed 
the Alacmon river and marched southward in an 
attempt to effect a surprise attack upon Thessal5^ 
At the Niseli bridge, a guard of twelve loyal 
evzones ^ of Queen Sophie's regiment stood off 
600 Venizelists, many of whom were also evzones. 
When the attackers saw that those who held the 
bridge were of the same corps, they refused to 
continue the engagement, and it was only by 
fording the river at another point and flanking 
the guards at the bridge that the invasion was 
successfully launched with a loss of a number of 
men for the invaders. What might have been 
the opening gun of civil war in Greece had been 
fired by the revolutionaries. It was Venizelos's 
retort to the decision of the Boulogne conference. 
Since the "provisional government" had been 
established in Saloniki, by tacit consent the Alac- 
mon river had marked the southern frontier of 
its sphere of influence. Now this frontier had 

^Greek light infantry, wearing the fustanella or skirt, the 
historic costume of the Greek wars of independence. They are 
regarded as the most intrepid soldiers in the Balkans. 

395 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

been crossed. Already the population of Mace- 
donia had been treated with the utmost cruelty 
by Venizelist "recruiting" officers, seeking to fill 
the ranks of his so-called "anti-Bulgarian army." 
The career of one Lefkis, a lieutenant in the 
iVenizelist army, is an extraordinary record of 
brutalities committed in the Chalcidic peninsula. 
Ex-Deputy Khalkirikis, of that district, hgjd left 
his home and taken to the mountains with 1500 
men, as in the days of the Turkish domination, 
to combat this conscription levied by force of 
Venizelist arms, with the knowledge and con- 
nivance of the French military authorities.^ 
Many fugitives from the Chalcidic peninsula had 
crossed to the mainland in small boats, with the 
few possessions left to them, and recounted the 
horrors of the VenizeHst occupation of the Chal- 
cidic. When, therefore. Major Bartzoukas and 
his "anti-Bulgarians" crossed the Alacmon and 
marched upon Ekaterina, the civil population 
fled before him in terror. 

The railways and telegraphs of Greece were 
in the control of the French. Major Mitsas, the 
loyal officer commanding the tiny garrison of 

1 See Appendix 4. 

396 



VENIZELIST INVASION OF OLD GREECE 

Ekaterina, telegraphed his headquarters at 
Larissa to request reinforcements and report that 
the Venizelist "anti-Bulgarian" army was prov- 
ing itself an anti- Greek army and descending in 
force upon Thessaly. The French control offi- 
cers in charge of the Greek telegraphs delayed 
his message until the revolutionists, a battalion 
strong, were before Ekaterina. The news, how- 
ever, ran through the country like wildfire and 
reached Colonel Trikoupis, in command at 
Larissa, almost as quickly as if the French had 
not delayed Major Mitsas's despatch. Nothing 
was gained by the action of the French control 
officers, save to reveal very clearly the Allied 
attitude toward the constitutional Greek Gov- 
ernment. 

Colonel Trikoupis lost no time. He sent a 
battalion with machine guns and mountain artil- 
lery to cross the shepherds' paths over Mount 
Olympus and take the revolutionists in the rear. 
At the same time, he asked permission of the 
Allied railway control officers to send reinforce- 
ments north in trains. Though Sir Francis 
Elliot assured King Constantine that this per- 
mission to use his own railways to defend his own 

399 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

country would be granted, it was not. The 
king had already, in compliance with his offer, 
begun the southward transportation of his troops 
from Thessaly, and despite the sudden invasion 
of the Venizelists, he did not halt the work. 

Fortunately for Greece, Colonel Trikoupis 
had not depended upon the railways to reinforce 
the loyal garrison of Ekaterina, now occupying 
the foothills west of that town. His troops 
crossed the Meluna heights, joined Major Mitsas 
at Kolokouri, and took possession of Condou- 
riotissa and Keramidi. Within a week of the 
crossing of the Alacmon river by the "anti-Bul- 
garian" army. Major Bartzoukas and his Veni- 
zelist revolutionists were surrounded on all sides 
but the sea. Had the Greek navy still been in 
Greek hands, the entire revolutionary force could 
have been captured or destroyed. 

King Constantine's orders to Colonel Trikou- 
pis were: "Spill no Greek blood. We are 
brothers all, even those who, misguided, fight 
against the State." The loyal commander, there- 
fore, merely informed the Venizelists that they 
were encircled and covered by artillery, and 
awaited developments. Major Bartzoukas tele- 

4iOO 



VENIZELIST INVASION OF OLD GREECE 

graphed General Sarrail to come to his rescue. 
On November 5, a detachment of French arrived 
post haste and occupied the town, the railway 
station, and the roads leading southward. The 
Venizelist invasion of Greece was over. 

On the failure of their enterprise, the Venize- 
lists claimed that they had only moved southward 
to seize the railway at Ekaterina, the northern- 
most point to which trains were run from Athens, 
and thus ensure that those desiring to leave 
Athens to join the Venizelist movement should 
not be stopped. But on the arrival of the Veni- 
zelists in Ekaterina, before they were aware that 
their manceuver had failed, they boasted loudly 
that all Thessaly was Venizelist, that the Thessa- 
lians were only waiting the signal to throw off 
"the yoke of the tyrant" (Constantine I) and 
join the "anti-Bulgarian" army. They declared 
openly that they proposed to march upon Athens 
and dethrone King Constantine and asserted that 
the whole of Thessaly would rise to join them as 
they went. Captain Alexander Zannos, a mem- 
ber of the "provisional government" committee, 
stated to me that the first aim of the Venizelos 
government was not to fight the Bulgarians, but 

401 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

to dethrone the king and conquer Hellas. Even 
the French officer in command of the detachment 
sent to the rescue of Major Bartzoukas mildly 
remarked that he supposed "the only way out 
of the muddle was to run King Constantine and 
his family out of Greece." Evidently, however, 
he knew very little about the actual situation in 
Greece. 

As I had just come through Thessaly on my 
way to join the Venizelist army, I knew how 
hollow were the boasts of the Venizelists that all 
of northern Greece was for the Cretan. Even in 
Ekaterina itself, a Macedonian town, the invad- 
ing troops received a sullen welcome from the 
local population. One thing also was made evi- 
dent in the descent of the Venizelists toward 
Thessaly — ^that many of the men enrolled in the 
"anti-Bulgarian" army remained unwillingly, 
and as soon as they approached open country, 
in easy touch with old Greece, they were off over 
the mountains to their homes. The week that 
Major Bartzoukas's force spent at Ekaterina 
cost him a fifth of his effective in desertions. 

There was no discipline, no organization among 
the Venizelist troops. Everybody gave orders, 

402 



VENIZELIST INVASION OF OLD GREECE 

and none obeyed them. The men, too, who had 
honestly enlisted to fight the Bulgars were 
shocked and disillusioned by this attempt at civil 
war in Greece itself. "These other men are our 
brothers," a Venizehst evzone said to me, speak- 
ing of the loyalists. "I did n't volunteer to fight 
them; I volunteered to fight the Bulgars." 
Colonel Trikoupis voiced a similar sentiment. 
"Nothing would please me better," he declared, 
"than to fight the Bulgars beside my old com- 
rades with whom I studied nine years in a mili- 
tary school in France. But I will not fight for 
Venizelos or under Venizelos. I will fight for 
my country, under my king, or I shall not fight. 
You will find most Greeks feel the same way." 



CHAPTER XXIV 

ADMIRAL DARTIGE DU FOURNET IN CONTROL 

While the revolutionary attempt to invade 
old Greece was meeting a decisive check at the 
hands of the constitutional Government, events 
were marching rapidly toward disaster both in 
Athens and Saloniki. In the Macedonian capi- 
tal the Venizelists renewed and further embit- 
tered their attacks on King Constantine, em- 
boldened by like attacks which they read daily 
in the British and French press. "L'Opinion," 
a subsidized French daily published in Saloniki, 
gave the keynote of abuse. Of King Constan- 
tine's assurance to the Allies that he had no in- 
tention of attacking General Sarrail's rear: 

A lie in form and substance, which would not deceive 
even His Simpleness, the crown prince — who will soon, 
we hope, be no more than the nephew of his uncle.-*^ ^ 

Suppose even that the king this time has not lied, 
and that order reigns in Athens. . . .^ 

1 The Kaiser. 

2 "L'Opinion," Oct. 20, 1916. 
sibid., Oct. 22, 1916. 

404 



ADMIRAL DARTIGE DU FOURNET 

Of the Greek sovereign himself: 

A comedy king, who does not know how to do any- 
thing but talk.^ . . . King Constantine who, to-day, 
bears the just burden of his infamies and of the retalia- 
tions to his repeated treasons.^ 

And finally, as an ingenuous statement of the 
aim of the ambitious Cretan : 

It is probable that Mr. Venizelos and his collabora- 
tors will shortly be able to transfer to Athens the seat 
of their government, which will no longer be provi- 
sional, but definitive.^ 

Not one, but every Venizelist organ in Mace- 
donia, was engaged in this sort of thing. The 
members of the "provisional government" with 
whom I talked at Ekaterina were even more 
violent in speech than these printed fulminations. 
While Venizelos was being pictured in the House 
of Commons by Sir Robert Cecil as a patriot 
sacrificing his ambitions to fight his country's 
enemies with neither rancor nor sinister purposes 
toward his sovereign, in Athens no less than in 
Saloniki a propaganda was at work to dethrone 
King Constantine and put Venizelos in his place 
as president of a nominal republic. 

lAnd this from Venizelos "L'Opinion," Oct. 20, 1916. 
2 Ibid., Oct. 22, 1916. sibid., Oct. 23, 1916. 

405 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Under this influence the commander of the 
Alhed fleet, now permanently established in 
Keratsina Bay, off the Piraeus, promptly fell. 
He was assiduously courted by the Venizelists. 
Save on the rare occasions when he saw the king 
to formulate some new demand, he was in touch 
only with those who were now openly plotting 
the overthrow of the truly democratic Greek 
monarchy. If he was misled by the information 
presented to him to prove that King Constan- 
tine's popularity with the Greek people was ficti- 
tious, the blame may perhaps rest better upon the 
Anglo-French secret police, which had long since 
ceased to be (if, indeed, it ever had been) an or- 
ganization to advise the Allied governments of 
actual conditions in Greece, and had become an 
organization of Venizelist propaganda. 

An example of the character of their work was 
offered at this period. A series of letters, pur- 
porting to have been written by government 
Deputy KaHmasiotis, and tending to reveal a vast 
plot to supply German submarines with fuel oil 
from Greece, was published in the Venizelist 
press, and reproduced in London, Paris, and New 
York. The publication of these alleged letters 

406 



ADMIRAL DARTIGE DU FOURNET 

came just after two small Greek vessels, the 
Angheliki and the Kiki Isdia, had been sunk, 
presumably by German submarines, and within 
gunshot of the nets protecting the Allied fleet 
in Keratsina Bay from submarine attack. The 
fact that hostile submarines could with impunity 
approach so closely the anchorage of the Allied 
war-ships was in itself disconcerting; the charge 
that they were supplied from Greece set the 
Entente naval authorities by the ears. Acting 
on the assumption drawn from the pretended 
correspondence of Deputy Kalimasiotis, Admiral 
Dartige du Fournet announced his intention of 
employing the Hellenic light flotilla, heretofore 
merely sequestrated, to combat hostile sub- 
marines, and promptly hoisted the French flag 
on the ships he had seized less than a month be- 
fore. 

From the point of view of international law the 
sequestration of the Hellenic navy was by no 
means justifiable, it is true; but to hoist the 
French flag on the ships so sequestrated and to 
use them while the nation to which they belonged 
still remained neutral created an entirely new 
precedent in the maintenance of "the freedom of 

407 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

the seas." It was one which could be possible 
only because Greece was small and the Allies big 
enough and strong enough to enforce any de- 
cision they might make. The Kalimasiotis let- 
ters proved to be, and were admitted by the 
Allied diplomatists to be, impudent forgeries; 
but as a pretext for employing the Hellenic navy 
in the Allies' warfare they had served their pur- 
pose. If wrong had been done on the strength 
of them, no attempt was made to right it. 

The admiral's action was taken on November 
7. It fanned into flame again all the resentment 
of the Greeks over their cavalier treatment at the 
hands of the Allies that King Constantine had 
been at such pains to quiet. Fortunately, how- 
ever, French Deputy Benazet arrived in Athens 
at this juncture and had a long conversation with 
the Greek monarch. He was convinced at once 
of the king's honesty and sincerity, as every 
man not wholly hypnotized by the Venizelists 
always was, and set about unofficially trying 
to find a solution to the whole fabric of needless 
friction which Venizelos and his followers had 
woven to separate the Greek sovereign and the 
Allies. The formula he found was to reestablish 

408 



ADMIRAL DARTIGE DU FOURNET 

a relationship of confidence between the Entente 
and King Constantine. When he suggested 
this to M. Guillemin, the latter cried: 

"Are you trying to ruin me?" 

*'I am trying to serve France for once in a 
way," Deputy Benazet is reported as replying 
dryly. 

M. Benazet 's talk with the king hinged on 
the extraordinary suspicions that the Allied 
governments continued to harbor against King 
Constantine despite the fact that the latter still 
kept open his offer of military cooperation with 
the Allies. He appealed to the Greek sovereign 
to make a still further sacrifice to convince the 
Entente of his sincerity, and admitted that it was 
no fault of Constantine I that his sincerity was 
still in question. To drive this appeal home, the 
British and French ministers, on November 9, 
issued a communique calling the attention of 
Premier Lambros to "the state of public opinion 
in Paris and London where, after the evidence 
of the good-will of the Allied governments re- 
cently given in the Ekaterina affair, it is not 
understood why no efficacious measures have 
been taken by the Greek Government to end the 

409 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

agitation kept up in quarters hostile to the 
Entente." 

The king was well aware that the Entente's 
"evidence of good-will" in the Ekaterina affair 
had been dictated solely by a desire to save the 
Venizelist invaders from capture by the loyal 
troops, not to save old Greece from an invasion 
of which it had never been in danger. Neither 
was he ignorant that what "public opinion" in 
respect to Greece there was in London and Paris 
had been manufactured by the governments of 
both countries to save their own political skins, 
following the failure of their policy in the near 
East. He realized indeed that in England at 
least the press campaign against him had been 
conducted really rather to force Sir Edward 
Grey out of office than for any reasons relating 
to Greece. Though in no sense taken in by the 
patent chicane of this communique^ King Con- 
stantine was so eager to reach an understanding 
with the Allies that he passed it by and offered 
to meet Deputy Benazet half-way in any con- 
ciliatory action he might suggest. M. Benazet's 
proposal was in substance as follows: the 
Gre^k Government had immediate need of its 

410 



ADMIRAL DARTIGE DU FOURNET 

armament, largely to parry any attempt at attack 
from the revolutionists. Should an arrangement 
for the military cooperation between Greece and 
the Allies be reached later, this armament could 
readily be replaced by the Entente before Greece 
would be called upon to engage in actual hostili- 
ties. General Sarrail was in desperate straits 
for lack of certain equipment, notably mountain 
artillery. If, therefore, the Allies were wilHng 
to guarantee constitutional Greece against the 
possibility of any attack by the revolutionists, 
what prevented King Constantine, as com- 
mander-in-chief of the Hellenic armies, from 
lending the Allies some part of the equipment 
they required? To reinforce his suggested plan. 
Deputy Benazet pointed out to the Greek mon- 
arch that such an act of magnanimity on his part 
would undoubtedly, once for all, dispose of any 
further suspicions maintained by the Allied 
governments. 

It is an earnest of the singleness of King Con- 
stantine's purpose to work in harmony with the 
Allied powers that he finally agreed to think the 
suggestion over and to do what he could to for- 
ward a better understanding between himself 

411 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

and the Entente. Deputy Benazet, on his part, 
was to seek quite unofficially to obtain the erec- 
tion of a neutral zone between Macedonia and old 
Greece, across which the French themselves 
should see that no revolutionary influence could 
pass to thrust Greece into civil war. In all of 
this negotiation the Greek monarch recommended 
Deputy Benazet to the utmost discretion, how- 
ever, pointing out that the recent manoeuvers of 
the Allies in Greece had succeeded in creating in 
Hellas what Baron von Schenck had failed to 
accomplish in two years of work — an active senti- 
ment cff hostility to the Allied powers, which 
would have to be handled with great tact. 

To aid in realizing this friendly understanding, 
General Roques, the new chief of the French 
staff, arrived from Saloniki, where he had been 
visiting the Allied Macedonian front, and con- 
ferred with King Constantine on the military 
details of the proposed arrangement. He in- 
creased the desire of the Allies from a few moun- 
tain batteries to virtually the entire equipment 
of the Hellenic army, as well as to the use and 
control of the automobile road from Itea, on the 
Gulf of Corinth, to Bralo, and of the Athens- 

412 



ADMIRAL DARTIGE DU FOURNET 

Saloniki railway from Bralo to Saloniki, as a 
possible line of retreat for Sarrail's forces. 
Also, he treated the matter as all settled, despite 
King Constantine's reminder that it was not only 
far from settled, but would require time and very 
adroit handling to carry through even part of the 
program as originally conceived. 

The French contention that the Greek sover- 
eign exercised the powers of an absolute monarch, 
able to impose his decisions upon the Hellenic 
people at any moment, besides being contrary to 
the case, here set the French themselves on a 
false route. They were willing enough to profit 
by this alleged absolutism of Constantine I when 
it was to their advantage, and they sought to do 
so now. Proceeding from the assumption that 
the Greek monarch wielded at least the same dic- 
tatorial powers of which they had had evidence 
in Venizelos's method of handling his followers, 
they expected King Constantine to order the 
surrender of Greece's armament to the Allies 
without further ado. The Greek sovereign's 
power with the Hellenic people, however, lies in 
his reflecting, not dictating, their will. He not 
only could not do all that was expected of him, 

413 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

but would not. As a high permanent Greek 
official put it, "It is difficult to conceive of any 
government consenting to surrender the arms 
and munitions of the Greek army to anybody." 
Whatever King Constantine's benevolence to- 
ward the Entente might be, here he was face to 
face with the fact that the arms of the Greek 
people belong to the Greek people. They had 
bought them with their own money, by privation 
and sacrifice. Inhabiting a land only of recent 
years adequately policed, each man regarded his 
rifle as a part of himself. It might be stored in 
the arsenal, but it was his personal property, 
ticketed with his own name and mobilization- 
number. He had used it in two wars and carried 
it through ten months, of mobilization. When 
he went to the arsenal, he expected to find it there 
waiting him. For all his love of the koumharos, 
not even the koumharos could lend, much less 
sell, the Greek reservist's rifle. 

One thing, however, King Constantine did do 
as an earnest of his desire to promote a better un- 
derstanding with the Allies. On November 11, 
as commander-in-chief of the army, he decreed 
that the officers of constitutional Greece who de- 

414 



ADMIRAL DARTIGE DU FOURNET 

sired to join the Allies at Saloniki would be free 
to resign from their rank in the army and leave 
Athens. The effect of this concession was far 
from what might have been expected. The 
Allies took it as a sign of weakness, not of sin- 
cerity, on the part of the Greek sovereign, and 
at once Admiral Dartige du Fournet presented 
the Hellenic Government with a demand in form 
for the immediate surrender to the Allies of ten 
batteries of mountain artillery and the delivery 
"within the shortest possible delay" of the follow- 
ing war material : 

Sixteen batteries of field artillery, with 1000 rounds 
of ammunition for each gun; 16 [that is, 6 in addition 
to the 10 already mentioned] batteries of mountain 
artillery, with 1000 rounds for each gun ; 40,000 Man- 
licher rifles, with 8,800,000 rounds of rifle ammunition ; 
140 machine-guns, with a proportionate quantity of 
ammunition ; and 50 military trucks. 

Save in the matter of machine-guns and rifles, 
this was virtually the entire available equipment 
of the Hellenic army. Once the admiral's de- 
mand were complied with, the Greeks, with a 
revolution on their hands and two formidable 
foreign armies within their frontiers, would be as 
helpless as the Belgians under German rule. 

415 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

As justification of his amazing demand, the 
French admiral began his note by laying great 
stress upon the fact that "the Entente powers 
have recognized formally the right of Greece to 
remain neutral in the present conflict." Just 
why the right of Greece, any more than that of 
Holland or Switzerland, to remain neutral should 
require recognition did not appear from this in- 
teresting document. The admiral went on, most 
appropriately, to recite a few, a very few, ex- 
amples of the benevolence toward the Entente 
of the neutrality hitherto maintained by Greece. 
"Nevertheless," he added, "the delivery to the 
Bulgarians of Fort Rupel and Cavalla and espe- 
cially* the abandonment in those places of im- 
portant war material has upset the equilibrium 
to the profit of the Entente's enemies in a man- 
ner of very grave import." He did not attempt 
to explain why it had taken the Allies almost 
six months to discover the upsetting of equilib- 
rium to which he referred, or why the Allied 
military authorities in Macedonia had consist- 
ently turned a deaf ear to repeated urgings by 
General Moscopoulos and Premier Zaimis to up- 
set the equilibrium in their own favor and occupy 

416 



ADMIRAL DARTIGE DU FOURNET 

that part of eastern Macedonia subsequently- 
seized by the Bulgarians. 

On the whole, the admiral's reasoning was as 
transparent as it was specious. As a final slap 
in the face of Greek pride, he reiterated a pre- 
vious offer to pay for the Greek light flotilla, 
which he had seized, and now offered to pay for 
the war material he was demanding. To cap 
the tact of his note, he added: 

The material must be delivered at the Athens station 
of the Thessalian railway, whence I shall send it to 
Saloniki ; and I demand that an officer, appointed by 
the minister, be sent to me that the details of execution 
of these measures may be arranged with him. 

Admiral Dartige du Fournet's note reminded 
the Lambros cabinet of nothing so much as the 
methods of the Turkish pashas of the days before 
the war of independence. There was not the 
faintest possibility that any such astonishing 
ultimatum would be accepted by the Greek 
people, whether or not the king wished to accept 
it. I talked to many Greeks in every walk of 
life in the fortnight which intervened between the 
presentation of the admiral's demand and his 
short-lived effort to enforce its compliance. I 

417 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

found no one who did not express a determination 
to lay down his life at once in defense of what 
remained of the sovereignty of Greece rather 
than accede to* what every one regarded as this 
final indignity heaped upon a long-suffering 
people. 

At first the alternative to acceptance was 
presented as a blockade of Greece and the star- 
vation of the Greek people. Prince Nicholas 
summed up the situation thus: 

In the crisis confronting Greece to-day, when the 
Entente Powers have demanded the virtual disarming 
of the Greek people, no statement of fact can reach 
the world at large save by permission of the Entente. 
On the other hand, the British and French press is 
filled with accounts of what has taken place in Greece 
which give only one side; no statement of the Greek 
case has yet been presented, or in the nature of things 
can be presented, untU after the war, when Greece may 
have ceased to exist. 

Nevertheless, our situation is so pitiable, the Entente 
handling of affairs of Greece has been so blind to the 
interests of the Entente Powers themselves,^ that it 
seems to me some hasty statement of a few of the facts 
should be given light at once. 

We are confronted with this alternative: to turn 

1 Cf. Mr. George Renwick, correspondent of the "Daily Chron- 
icle" of London: "The errors and lack of imagination and knowl- 
edge of the Entente diplomats are responsible for nearly all the 
genuine opposition to the abandonment of neutrality which exists 
in the country. "War Wanderings," p. 243. 

4.18 



ADMIRAL DARTIGE DU FOURNET 

over to one of the belligerents arms and munitions be- 
longing to our army with which to fight the other bel- 
ligerent, thus forcing us into the war whether we will 
or no; or to suifer measures of pression including the 
stoppage of our supplies from such neutral countries 
as the United States, amounting in a short time to the 
starvation of our people. We have this choice: de- 
clare war or starve. We have no other. 

It is as if the British Government were to say to the 
United States, "If you will not fight at once, you must 
give up all the arms and ammunitions in your arsenals, 
strip your army of its equipment, and turn it over to 
us so that we may fight the Germans with your 
weapons." 

Greece is small and the United States is large; but 
principle is not a matter of size. That is precisely 
the principle upon which the demands of the Entente 
have been made upon us. 

The most significant point brought out by 
King Constantine's brother was the fact that no 
impartial statement of the real feeling of the 
Greek people in the matter of the surrender of 
their arms was permitted to filter out to the world 
at large. And not only were the United States 
and the other neutrals kept in ignorance of what 
was going on, but the people of Great Britain 
and France as well. Between November 16 and 
December 1, I sent twenty messages containing 
in one form or another the information that in- 
sistence upon disarming Greece would meet with 

419 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

resistance from the Greek people. Every such 
message was stopped by the AUied censors. No 
one was permitted to tell the people of the United 
States, or of France or England either, what the 
admiral's demands meant, nor the inevitable out- 
come of persisting in them, evident from the first 
to any intelligent observer in Greece at the time. 

To the Venizelists, the admiral's demand was 
the very desire of their hearts. They, too, were 
well aware that no Government of Greece would 
or could yield to this last exigency on the part of 
the Entente, and they were delighted with the 
prospect of an unavoidable conflict between the 
King of the Hellenes and the Allied powers. 
They felt certain that a dethronement of the 
Greek monarch must result from such a clash, 
and they at once set about perfecting their ar- 
rangements to take full advantage of what- 
ever the outcome might prove. "This moment 
must not take us by surprise," as Pamicos Zym- 
brakakis wrote Venizelos, "but quite the contrary, 
it must find us prepared and ready to create a 
de facto situation, in collaboration with the 
Entente Powers, and especially with France. . . ." 

I am unable to bring myself to believe that 
420 



ADMIRAL DARTIGE DU FOURNET 

Admiral Dartige du Fournet was a conscient 
party to the Venizelist plot to eifect a coup 
d'etat in conjunction with his demand and his 
eventual attempt to force the surrender of the 
armament of Greece. It is undoubtedly true 
that the motive of the demand was the necessity 
for supplying such force as Venizelos had been 
able to gather in Saloniki with an equipment 
which the force itself was too insignificant to 
justify the AlHes in going to the trouble to fur- 
nish. It seemed, and still seems to me, despite 
what Mr. Venizelos wrote his adherents in 
Athens,^ fairly evident that the Venizelists would 
not have taken so much pains at this juncture to 
persuade the French admiral of their strength in 
Athens had they and he been really working in 
concert. 

Beginning with the day of the presentation of 
the demand, the entire Venizelist organization in 
Athens and the Piraeus set* themselves to convince 
the admiral that he had only to remain firm in his 
insistence to see the king weaken at the last mo- 
ment and tamely give up the arms required. 
The first step to this end was to persuade the 

1 Appendix 6. 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

French sailor that the Venizehsts themselves were 
the masters of public opinion in Greece, and could 
dictate the king's course to him when the mo- 
ment for action should come. As Venizelos ex- 
pressed it when writing to General Corakas on 
November 7: "What remains, after all, of this 
famous king, who is still your king? Not even 
the shadow of himself! His authority has been 
reduced to shreds by one concession after another. 
His war teeth have been pulled one by one." 

To convince the admiral of his power in Athens 
as well as in Saloniki, Venizelos sent a number of 
his trusted agents to the capital with unlimited 
funds. Demonstrations in favor of France and 
Great Britain, and even of Venizelos, were or- 
ganized and protected, directed often by the 
French and British legations. Never were the 
Anglo-French secret police so active, all to per- 
suade the conrmander of their own fleet of what 
they had reason to know was not so — that he 
could, without a struggle, take Greek arms from 
the sons of those who had fought at Karpenisi and 
died at Missolonghi. A hired claque accom- 
panied the admiral's every visit to the capital with 
cheers for France. I recall one "demonstration" 

422 



ADMIRAL DARTIGE DU FOURNET 

on a day of rain, when every demonstrator was 
supplied with overshoes and an umbrella, rarities 
in Greece, by the thoughtful Venizelist stage- 
managers. There was nothing subtle about this 
fictitious enthusiasm for the Entente at a moment 
when the admiral's demand hung over the Greek 
people. The heads of the Anglo-French secret 
police earned their money in full view of the 
audience, leading the cheers and prompting the 
"demonstrators" in their lines. Whether the 
French admiral knew that a revolution was being 
plotted in his shadow or not, it would be difficult 
to believe that his own secret service was not 
aware of it, and actually aiding it as actively as 
they could. 

On November 19, Admiral Dartige du Four- 
net had a long talk with King Constantine, mak- 
ing a number of minor supplementary demands 
in keeping with his comprehensive formal note 
of three days before. The Greek sovereign made 
his position clear to the French sailor, explaining 
that even had he wished to lend the Allies, as a 
mark of good-will, certain batteries of mountain 
artillery, compliance with any such sweeping 
demands as the admiral's was out of the question. 

423 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

The admiral, however, was obdurate. Had he 
not been the recipient of one ovation after an- 
other at the hands of the people of Athens and 
the Pirseus? He smiled jovially over the king's 
earnest words when I talked with him, and left 
the palace with the impression that he knew more 
about the feelings of the Greek people than did 
King Constantine. 

After this interview King Constantine said to 
me: "I am still perfectly willing to carry out 
the proposal made by the Caloguyeropoulos cabi- 
net to join the Allies on the basis of a guarantee 
of the integrity of Greece, though the oppor- 
tunity for an effective military cooperation with 
Rumania is now gone, and little would be gained, 
either by the Allies or by us, through Greece's 
coming in at the beginning of winter, when no 
sort of a campaign can be reasonably undertaken 
in Macedonia. But as for giving up the arms of 
my people as the admiral demands, he must be 
mad! I could not do it if I wanted to; and, as 
a Greek myself, I would not do it if I could." 

But even this possibility of arrangement was 
precluded by a personal message from Premier 
Briand which M. Guillemin delivered to King 

424 



ADMIRAL DARTIGE DU FOURNET 

Constantine the same day. The French prime 
minister began his communication with a tribute 
to the candor and sincerity with which the Greek 
monarch had dealt with the Entente. He recog- 
nized for the second time that the King of the 
Hellenes had honestly offered to join the Allies 
without the shadow of a thought of betrayal or 
chicane in his proposal, and admitted that there 
was no reason to suppose that King Constantine 
personally desired to assist the enemies of the 
Entente. This complete profession of faith in 
the Greek sovereign on M. Briand's part is the 
more significant in view of the mass of matter 
to the contrary against which his Government's 
censorship had not raised a finger. This matter 
had been freely published in Paris, and spread 
broadcast over the world, while any account of 
King Constantine's action and attitude which 
agreed with M. Briand's own statement of them 
was promptly suppressed by the Allied censors. 

The French premier went on to review the 
events leading to the position in which Greece and 
the Allies found themselves, and to suggest 
various remedies calculated to relieve the tension ; 
but he made no promise that anything King 

425 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Constantine could do would really lessen the pres- 
sure then being apphed to Greece, and offered 
no guarantee that the measures of control of food- 
supply, railways, telephones, posts, telegraphs, 
shipping, and police of Greece, then being exer- 
cised by the Allies, would not be increased in the 
future. He stated finally that the only solution 
of the situation as it then stood was not in Greece's 
loyally becoming an ally of the Entente, as the 
Greek monarch had proposed, but in King Con- 
stantine's recalling Venizelos to power and plac- 
ing the Government of Greece entirely in the 
hands of the Cretan. 

The French statesman indulged in no vagaries 
about the constitutionality of the course he pro- 
posed, no nonsense about the sovereign will of the 
Greek people. The Briand cabinet was judge of 
what the Greek people wanted. King Constan- 
tine could execute its orders or take the conse- 
quences. 

King Constantine informed M. Guillemin that 
he was ready to take any consequences his refusal 
to recall Venizelos might entail. Not he alone, 
but the Hellenic people, regarded the Cretan as a 
traitor, and he would not recall him to power un- 

426 



ADMIRAL DARTIGE DU FOURNET 

der pressure of any will save that of the people 
of Greece. 

So efficacious were the receptions and demon- 
strations staged for Admiral Dartige du Four net 
by the Venizelists that they seemed to convince 
him not only that there would be no trouble 
about compliance with his demand for the sur- 
render of the armament of Greece, but that he 
was already master of Hellas. It is difficult to 
conceive of any other reasoning which could jus- 
tify in his own eyes his order of November 19, 
addressed to the envoys extraordinary and min- 
isters plenipotentiary of Austria-Hungary, Bul- 
garia, Germany, and Turkey, summoning them 
to leave the neutral country to which they were 
accredited by nine o'clock of the morning of No- 
vember 22. The action has one precedent of 
which I know in history: General Tscheppe von 
Wildenbriick's famous order to French Minister 
Mollard to quit the Grand Duchy of Luxem- 
burg about which there was so much indigna- 
tion in France and England in the first days of 
the war. 

Long since without any sort of communication 
with their respective governments, and conse- 

427 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

quently of little practical use to their countries, 
the four diplomatists in question were little loath 
to leave Greece. In Entente circles in Athens 
the admiral's order was hailed as if it had been 
the news of a gi'eat Allied victory. It was 
freely prophesied that, once the diplomatic repre- 
sentatives of the Central empires were gone, all 
would be plain sailing for Venizelos and the En- 
tente in Greece. It was characteristic of the 
superficiality of most of the political dispositions 
taken by the Allied governments in the near 
East that the possibility that the attitude of the 
Hellenic people was dictated by a natural and 
rudimentary patriotism, not by German propa- 
ganda, was never for a moment considered. The 
Greek was not supposed to have an opinion of his 
own; if he did not, as did Venizelos, indorse every 
phase of the Entente's shifting pohcy in the near 
East, he must be a recipient of German money, 
supporting Germany's cause. 

The ministers of the Central empires left 
Greece without incident. Their departure, na- 
turally, made no change whatever in the attitude 
of the Greek Government or the Greek people, 
since that attitude was dictated by Hellenic, not 

428 



ADMIRAL DARTIGE DU FOURNET 

Germanic, sentiment/ Neither did their depar- 
ture make any decrease in the activity of German 
submarines in the eastern Mediterranean, since 
the submarines were not supplied from Greece, 
but, in all probability, from Dalmatia, Bulgaria, 
and Constantinople, as every Allied naval officer 
of intelligence was frank to admit. 

Save as a needless offense to Greece's inde- 
pendent sovereignty, the departure of the repre- 
sentatives of the Central empires left King Con- 
stantine cold. He had other troubles on his 
hands. On ISTovember 20 he called a crown 
council and laid before it M. Briand's suggestion 
that Venizelos be recalled to rule Greece, report- 
ing the reply he had made the French minister. 
The assembly of all the former premiers of 
Greece unanimously approved their sovereign's 
stand. The king then laid before the council a 
plan for a recognized war cabinet, to be formed 
in case the Allied governments, recognizing their 
false step in demanding the recall of Venizelos, 

1 Even George Renwick, special correspondent of the London 
" Daily Chronicle," by no means an admirer of the Greek sov- 
ereign and a strong partisan of Venizelos, says of King Con- 
stantine: "I think that, however much he admires the Germans, 
he is more pro-Greek than pro-German." "War Wanderings," 
p. 248. 

429 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

were to accept the Greek monarch's proposal of 
military cooperation with the Allies, which King 
Constantine insisted be still held open. This 
was also approved. On the head of any sur- 
render of the arms of Greece to the Allies or 
anybody else, the crown council pronounced a 
definitely negative judgment. 

On November 21, therefore. Premier Lambros 
replied directly to Admiral Dartige du Fournet 
in a note to which was appended a comparative 
list to show that the Allies, in taking possession 
of the Greek fleet, the arsenal, the fortifications 
of the Piraeus, Saloniki, Fort Dova Tepe, and 
Fort Karabournou had already received of Greece 
far more in the way of arms and munitions than 
all the Bulgars had obtained in taking Fort 
Rupel, Serres, Drama, and Cavalla. 

Disposing thus finally of the French admiral's 
claim that any military equihbrium in the near 
East had been upset by the Bulgarian seizure of 
certain Greek munitions. Premier Lambros went 
on to inform the admiral that Hellenic public 
opinion rendered the surrender of the arms of 
Greece utterly impossible, and to rejoin to the 
admiral's demand "a very categorical refusal, 

430 




GEORGE, DUKE OF SPARTA 
Heir apparent to the throne of Greece 



ADMIRAL DARTIGE DU FOURNET 

while nourishing the hope that you will recognize 
that the refusal is based upon good grounds." 
At the same time Foreign Minister Zalocostas 
advised the Entente diplomatists in Athens of 
the decision of the Hellenic Government. The 
public announcement in Athens that the Govern- 
ment had formally refused to accede to the ad- 
miral's demand was the signal for a popular dem- 
onstration for King Constantine that might well 
have given the Allied ministers something to 
think about. 

So far no definite threat had been made by the 
Allies of what would happen to Greece in event 
of refusal to the admiral's demand, and no precise 
date had been set for compliance with it. On 
November 24, however. Admiral Dartige du 
Fournet, applauded and encouraged by Ven- 
izelists and the Venizelist press, set any doubts 
on the latter subject at rest. He wrote in reply 
to Premier Lambros's note : 

I find it difficult to admit that public opinion, in a 
country as enlightened as Greece, can regard as insup- 
portable the idea of ceding to Powers for which Greece 
affirms a benevolent neutrality arms and munitions not 
in the hands of her army, but completely unused, in her 
arsenals . . . 

Referring, therefore, to my previous note of Novem- 
433 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

ber 16, I have the honor to confirm to the royal Hel- 
lenic government that, as a proof of its good-mil, I 
demand ten batteries of mountain artillery not later 
than December 1, the date of the delivery of the rest 
of the war material demanded not to be later than 
December 15. 

It is easy to understand that not only the Hel- 
lenic Government, but the Greek people, consid- 
ered the admiral's reasoning fatuous. On the 
same basis the Allies might just as well have 
demanded the surrender of the arms of Switzer- 
land or Holland or, at that time, of the United 
States. "If my demand is not complied with," 
the admiral concluded, "I shall be obliged to take, 
after December 1, whatever measures the situa- 
tion may require." 

Meanwhile, the undeclared blockade of Greece, 
which the Allies had quietly put into effect on 
September 30, was already telling upon the popu- 
lation of the country. Venizelos and his fol- 
lowers regarded the evident symptoms of popu- 
lar dissatisfaction with undisguised delight. The 
Cretan had written his chief representative in 
Athens, General Corakas, on November 7: 

The specter of hunger and of suffering is already 
abroad throughout old Greece, and will become still 
more terrible, so soon as a new and very efficacious 

4S4« 



ADMIRAL DARTIGE DU FOURNET 

blockade shall be established. The soul of the people 
is already at the last limit of human endurance ; so near 
is this that one last blow — which is imminent — will suf- 
fice to finish it. 

It never seemed to occur to Venizelos, or in- 
deed to the British and French ministers to 
Greece, that the effect of the intolerable tyranny 
of Allied pohce control, of slow starvation 
through Allied food-control, of industrial throt- 
tling resultant upon their control of railways and 
telegraphs, of constant threat of invading revo- 
lutionists, and finally, as a last straw, of the 
admiral's stupefying demand for surrender of 
the defensive arms of Greece, might prove a 
boomerang falling upon the Venizelists, even 
upon the Allied powers, great as they were and 
real as was the fundamental affection of the 
Hellenic people for France. Starting from a 
fixed idea that King Constantine held the Greeks 
in unwilling subjection only by force of arms, 
Venizelos and the Allies saw all things through 
glass of that shade. The actual fact to the con- 
trary, as patent to any disinterested observer as 
is the Acropolis, escaped them as completely as 
if it did not exist. It required a dire experience 
to drive home to them the falsity of their assump- 

435 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

tion. They had not long to wait that experience. 
The day following the admiral's fixing of De- 
cember 1 as the date for delivery of the arms, the 
whole of Greece was in ferment over the pros- 
pect. In Thessaly, where, in compliance with 
King Constantine's promise to withdraw his force 
in excess of peace strength, artillery was being 
shipped southward, the population stopped the 
trains, dragged the guns from the cars, and, the 
women pulling on the ropes as well as the men, 
they hid their precious cannon in the hills. 
Telegrams poured in on the king and Premier 
Lambros stating that, were the arms of Greece 
to be surrendered, the Hellenic people would ex- 
act instant punishment of those who had con- 
sented to the surrender. The sailors dispossessed 
of the Greek fleet, those sailors who so short a 
time before had been strikingly pro-English in 
their sentiments, petitioned their commander-in- 
chief in these terms : 

Your sailors, who have been driven from their glori- 
ous ships, who have been subjected to contempt and 
humiliation from which their hearts still bleed, aban- 
doned their ships only because you wished it. To-day 
our guns and our cannon, so lately covered with laurels 
for having brought back the sweet light of liberty to so 
many millions of our brothers, are demanded. We 

436 



ADMIRAL DARTIGE DU FOURNET 

shall not permit that a hand be laid upon them under 
any circumstance. All of your sailors, without ex- 
ception, have decided to give the last drop of our [sic] 
blood for the defense of the honor of the arms of 
Greece. Give them not up ! They shall be taken only 
by those who tread upon the dead bodies of the last 
of us! 

Heroics, if you please, but there cannot be 
the slightest question that precisely this feeling 
inspired nine out of every ten among the Greeks. 
It was not difficult to ascertain this feeling de- 
spite the hysterical tone of the Venizelist press, 
which claimed daily that talk of resistance was 
mere futile "bluff," as the Franco- Venizelist 
organ "Le Messager d'Athenes" termed it. One 
had only to walk about the streets and talk to 
people at random to discover a sentiment com- 
parable to that which moved the members of 
"The Boston Tea Party." The Venizelist press 
only served to deceive the admiral and the British 
and French ministers. In an editorial entitled 
"Bluff or Menace," every statement of which was 
a childish falsification of facts, the "Messager" 
referred to the incontestable manifestations of 
popular determination to resist the surrender of 
arms as "the most pitiful comedy ever played at 
the expense of a people and their sacred inter- 

437 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

ests" ; and in another article, on November 29, it 
conjured the AUies to "redeem by pitiless punish- 
ments your indefensible weakness toward those 
who have deceived you and Greece." The 
French admiral and the Allied diplomatists took 
this purely poHtical froth seriously. Their cre- 
dulity cost the lives of many Frenchmen. 

In the dilemma created by an almost unani- 
mous national sentiment against surrender of 
arms, and the blindness of the British and French 
ministers to the existence of this sentiment, the 
Lambros government, on November 27, appealed 
to the neutral powers for sympathy in the situa- 
tion which a formal note exposed. Mr. Zalo- 
costas wrote : 

The right of might has been set up against every 
legitimate protest of Greece. The royal government 
desires that the neutrals take into consideration that 
the spirit of conciliation and equity which it has shown 
has not been able to spare the Hellenic people the grave 
vicissitudes through which their Fatherland is pass- 
ing at this moment. We are not strong enough to 
avoid them, for they are the inevitable result of Greece's 
geographical position and of the conflict in interests 
of great belligerent Powers. 

It is significant that my despatch transmitting 
the bare text of this official document to the press 

438 



ADMIRAL DARTIGE DU FOURNET 

of one of the neutral countries to which it was 
directed was suppressed by the AUied censorship. 
When I expressed surprise at this pohcy of 
hiding the truth to one of my friends, a member 
of one of the Allied legations, he replied: 

"It ma)^ be unwise, as you say. But you can 
make up your mind to one thing: we do not 
propose to let anything go out of Greece that 
does not suit our book." ^ It is difficult even yet 
to see how it suited the book of the Allies to keep 
the people of France and England in blank ig- 
norance of a situation which, in its working out, 
needlessly cost so many lives. Allied and Greek 
alike. 

1 Ci. M. Gabriel Hanotaux, La Guerre dans les Balkans et 
I'Europe, p. 357: "We know very well that European public 
opinion is being twisted about by a well staged bluflf, and that 
things are not altogether — if indeed at all — what they seem." 



439 



CHAPTER XXV 

THE BATTLE OF ATHENS 

On November 27, King Constantine, con- 
vinced that the people of England and France 
and possibly even their governments were in 
ignorance of the actual situation in Greece, sent 
a telegram to Premier Briand through his 
brother. Prince George, reviewing the situation 
in its entirety. Covering thirty -four type-writ- 
ten pages, the Greek monarch's message consti- 
tutes one of the ablest documents of the war. In 
it he refers to the four distinct occasions upon 
which he has been willing and ready to join 
Greece with the Allies, and calls attention to the 
fact that he had not even then received a direct 
reply to his last offer. He destroys with cate- 
gorical and circumstantial denials the whole 
artificial fabric of his pro-Germanism that had 
been woven at such trouble in England, France, 
and the United States, declaring that neither 
Greece nor he personally had any agreement, 

440 



THE BATTLE OF ATHENS 

understanding, or treaty whatsoever with the 
Germans as to the course of Greece in the war. 
He takes up the charge that German submarines 
have been supplied from Greece, and quotes 
Admiral Palmer, the head of the British naval 
mission in Greece, as stating that there was no 
evidence to show that German submarines had 
ever been so supplied, or that the Greeks were 
cognizant of the operations of the German sub- 
marines. In reply to loose assertions that Greek 
officers had furnished information or assistance 
of any kind to the Germans, he enters a sweeping 
denial, meeting every point raised in this connec- 
tion by sensational British and French journal- 
ists. As to his alleged violation of the Greek 
Constitution in dismissing Venizelos from the 
premiership in October, 1915, he states that, had 
the Cretan stood for election on December 19, 
1915, and been chosen by the Hellenic people, he 
would gladly have called him to form a govern- 
ment as he had previously called him following 
the elections of June 13, 1915, and that he had so 
advised Venizelos himself. 

Probably had Premier Briand been willing to 
publish this message all the misunderstanding 

441 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

still subsisting in respect of Greece would have 
disappeared, and the case of King Constantine 
would have appeared for the first time in the light 
of candor, even despite the efforts of the Anglo- 
French press to make the Greek sovereign out a 
German agent. Certainly, had the facts been 
brought to light at that juncture the events of 
December 1 and 2 could scarcely have occurred. 
Nor would it have been necessary for King Con- 
stantine to issue in May, 1917, a formal state- 
ment denying the grotesque assertions published 
in all seriousness by "Le Temps" of Paris, on 
April 11, 1917, which by their very absurdity 
betray the weakness of the whole Allied diplo- 
macy in the near East.^ 

1 "His Majesty the King, having read in the newspaper *Le 
Temps' No. 20,367 under date of April 11, an article entitled 
The Record of the King of Greece, categorically denies in the 
most formal manner the views attributed to him in this article. 
His Majesty has never until now had any knowledge whatso- 
ever of the German or other publications mentioned in said ar- 
ticle, according to which he is alleged to have expressed a hope 
of the success of the arms of one of the belligerents or to have 
expressed himself in hostile fashion towards one of the belliger- 
ents or spoken in any way whatsoever in the sense of said opin- 
ions attributed to him. 

"It is equally false that His Majesty has ever received from any 
sovereign of the group enemy to the Entente any telegrams, note 
or counsel of any kind on the subject of the policy he should 
follow 'to maintain his throne.' " 

"Finally, His Majesty the King disclaims, for his part, every 

442 



THE BATTLE OF ATHENS 

On November 27, also, Admiral Dartige du 
Fournet made his last call upon King Constan- 
tine. His visit brought no alteration in a situa- 
tion big with the menace of death. In the course 
of his conversation with the Greek sovereign he 
expressed concern for the safety of certain Veni- 
zelist merchants who feared a looting of their 
shops in the event of actual hostilities. The king 
promised that their shops should be protected, 
and, that there might be no question of what he 
had promised, directed Count Mercati, the grand 
marshal of his court, to write the admiral in 
the following sense. I quote the letter in its 
essential part, as it has since been claimed that 
by it King Constantine gave an assurance that 
the admiral's landing force would meet no re- 
sistance : 

Neither the persons nor the private houses nor the 
shops of the Venizelists are in danger, for both the 

allegation in said article according to whicli it appears that he 
or his government ever harbored hostile intentions towards the 
Entente. 

"On the order of His Majesty the King, the marshal of the 
royal court begs His Excellency the French Minister to be good 
enough to transmit to the government of the French Republic 
the above declarations which have been made for the purpose of 
disposing of any misunderstandings which may have been created 
in the minds of the people of France." 

443 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

police and the military authorities, with a view to as- 
suring the maintenance of public order, will exercise 
the strictest surveillance and will guarantee their se- 
curity. 

It is understood that these high assurances are given 
only on the formal condition that neither the secret 
police employed by the Allied Powers nor the forces 
to be landed will proceed to the arrest, imprisonment, 
or deportation of Hellenic subjects, and on a like un- 
derstanding that the Venizelists shall abstain from any 
activity calculated to inspire reprisals. 

Not only is no assurance given that a landing 
force will not meet with resistance, but the ad- 
miral's intention to land a force is here plainly 
recognized both by King Constantine and the 
admiral. The latter's subsequent contention that 
he was "ambushed" by the Greek sovereign must 
therefore seem rather futile. 

He had plenty of other grounds for knowing 
that his landing party would meet with desperate 
resistance, however. Every press telegram sent 
from Greece passed through the hands of Ad- 
miral Dartige de Fournet's own control officers 
in the Athens telegraph office. The sole reason 
for the existence of this censorship was to ac- 
quaint the admiral of any information which 
might be gleaned from press and private de- 
spatches sent over Greek wires. On November 

444 



THE BATTLE OF ATHENS 

21 such a telegram announced in advance that 
the Greek Government's formal reply to the ad- 
miral's demand would be a "categorical refusal" ; 
on November 24 another such message read, 
"Resistance expected"; on November 25: 

"The Greek Government claims that even if it could 
have considered the delivery of the arms before, it cer- 
tainly cannot now. . . . The population of Tournavo 
are forcibly preventing the southward shipment of the 
artillery stationed there, fearing that it might be given 
up to the Allies." 

On November 27 another reference was 
made in a press telegram to "resistance to the 
Entente's seizure of the arms" ; on November 29 
a despatch repeated the crown council's "support 
of the Government's decision that it is impossible 
to surrender the arms"; the same date still an- 
other despatch quoted the Greek chief of staff, 
Colonel Stratigos, as saying: 

The arms of Greece will not be surrendered. . . . 
The rifles demanded are, as they were ninety years ago 
at the time of our struggle for liberty, largely in the 
hands of the Greek people, who will know how to use 
them, now as then, in defense of the independence of 
Greece. The world is probably ignorant of our situa- 
tion, but we are ready to fight until civilization cries 
down what is taking place in Greece to-day. 

On November 30 another message asserted: 
445 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

"The determination to resist any debarkment is 
incontestable. . . . Bloodshed to-morrow most 
probable." The same day King Constantino 
himself was quoted in a telegram as declaring, 
"While no attack on the Allies is even thought of, 
the armament of Greece will not be surrendered, 
nor will any one be permitted to seize the arma- 
ment by force." Finally, on the eve of the ad- 
miral's landing, a telegram was sent saying: 
"All arrangements have already been completed 
to resist any effort to take the arms." Every one 
of the above messages was passed upon by the 
French admiral's own control officers. Every 
one was stopped by the control officers j yet every 
one spoke the literal truth which, had the admiral 
believed it, would have saved the lives of many 
gallant Frenchmen. 

It is, however, unnecessary to go further into 
the matter of what Admiral Dartige du Fournet 
had indirect reason to expect in landing his troops 
on the neutral soil of Greece. The testimony of 
his official orders issued to the landing force is 
conclusive. These orders, signed by "the Cap- 
tain commanding the 1st corps of debarcation of 
squadron A, Pugliesi-Conti," were taken apiong 

446 



THE BATTLE OF ATHENS 

the effects of a captured French officer during 
the battle on December 1. Order No. 12 makes 
general provisions for a serious land expedition, 
with supplies for two days' fighting. The muni- 
tions distributed are: "b/. The armament: 96 
cartridges and 8 blank cartridges." The sani- 
tary service is especially provided for: 

The wounded ^ will be either, according to circum- 
stances, sent aboard the Provence, to be redistributed 
to the ships to which they belong, or put in hospital at 
the Russian hospital in the Piraeus, under the usual con- 
ditions. 

Even the maps to be employed are indicated 
with precision: 
b/. Maps Used. 

The troops operating in the Piraeus will employ the 
/'42500 maps on blue print paper which will be distrib- 
uted to them. 

The troops operating in the open country will use 
the 3^500 map mounted on linen, which will be dis- 
tributed to them. 

Eventually for operations inside Athens, the plan 
mounted on linen will be used, which will be distributed. 

Besides, the map divided into squares for artillery 
fire will be that of -J^soo distributed for this purpose to 
the battalion commanders, to the aviators, and to the 
ships designated to do the firing. 

1 The word evacuSs is here used in distinction from the word 
malades, also used, but to refer to the sick. 

447 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

The admiral and the Allied governments have 
since sought to give the impression that the land- 
ing force, while engaged in a peaceful demonstra- 
tion, was treacherously attacked by the Greeks. 
Minute preparations are here seen for an expedi- 
tion in which fighting is expected and wounded 
are to be cared for. A naval bombardment of 
an open city, filled with women and children, 
is foreseen. Order No. 13, dated November 28, 
and marked secret in red letters, defined the 
object of the landing party: 

General objective of the corps of debarcation: 
The corps of debarcation must establish itself bi/ 
force if necessary in the positions the occupation of 
which by our troops constitutes a menace to Athens. 
The positions to be occupied are: 

(1) The whole of the Nymphs, Pnyx and Philop- 
papos hills, dominating Athens ; 

(2) The Zappeion and its vicinity. . . . 
The buildings to be seized are: 

(a) A powder magazine (marked A on the annexed 
map) ; 

(b) The buildings belonging to the Greek engineer 
corps, called Rouf (point B) ; 

(c) A cartridge factory (point C on map). 
Besides, the corps of debarcation must militarily oc- 
cupy the Piraeus. 

Scarcely a peaceable demonstration! It will 
be noted that in the vicinity of the Zappeion, 

448 



THE BATTLE OF ATHENS 

within 400 yards of it, in fact, is King Constan- 
tine's palace. One final touch is that, according 
to this secret order, a detachment designated as 
the "first special group" is to bivouac in the muni- 
cipal theater, in the heart of the city! It is dif- 
ficult to see how, with these preparations for 
every contingency, either the admiral himself or 
his Government could cry that their force had 
been "treacherously led into an ambush" by King 
Constantine. 

On November 29, when there seemed to be 
no prospect of adjusting the difficulties between 
the French admiral and the Greek Government, 
King Constantine, as constitutional commander- 
in-chief of the Greek armies, called for volunteers 
to defend the arms of Greece against any attempt 
to seize them by force. From dawn of No- 
vember 30 thousands upon thousands of men 
streamed in from every point within a day's 
journey of the Hellenic capital. Not a man was 
called to the colors ; all who came, came of their 
own free will. At the various barracks peasants' 
smocks were exchanged for the uniforms that had 
done service at Kilkis and Janina; shepherds' 
crooks gave way to the familiar rifle that each 

451 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

man had carried through two wars. Every kind 
of conveyance was used to bring the men of 
Greece to the side of their king: donkeys, two- 
wheeled carts, cabs, oxen-driven farm- wagons. 
Thousands walked, carrying flags and singing 
route songs. Had the French minister but 
glanced out of his window during the day, he 
would have seen the street before his legation 
black with men on their way to lay down their 
lives in a fight against four of the greatest mili- 
tary powers of the world to defend their little 
stock of worn and faithful guns. 

But no one looked, no one heeded. The 
Venizelist press cried "Bluff" in the face of this 
almost unanimous demonstration of the will of 
a liberty-loving people, and the British and 
French ministers believed this cheap printed folly 
rather than their own eyes. It was not until 
that afternoon that some of the British corre- 
spondents came to me, saying that matters looked 
serious. 

"Of course," I said. "They have looked seri- 
ous for a week, but you would not see it." 

"But the king is mad," they rejoined. "He 
cannot fight England, France, Russia, and Italy 

452 



THE BATTLE OF ATHENS 

combined. He will listen to you; tell hini he is 
digging his own grave." 

*'So far as I know," I replied, "King Constan- 
tine does not mean to fight anybody if he can 
help it. If your men remain on their war-ships, 
where they belong, there will be no fight. If they 
land and march on Athens, there will be more 
of a fight than they look for. How would you 
feel if a big Spanish force landed at Tilbury and 
marched on London? You have been telling the 
British public for weeks that King Constantine 
is supported only by a handful of pro-Germans 
in his court. Look at that endless line of men 
going to volunteer to fight for him! Tell your 
pubhc that!" 

In the afternoon of November 30, Foreign 
Minister Zalocostas personally took the Greek 
Government's final official word aboard the 
Pi'ovence: 

The royal Government has examined with great care 
the arguments put forward in support of your de- 
mands, particularly the argument that our arms which 
are now unemployed are to be used to combat for the 
freedom of the soil watered most generously by Hellenic 
blood. The royal Government is, however, convinced 
that the arms of Greece are not destined to remain for- 
ever in her arsenal, for which reason they must always 

453 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

be ready eventually to arm Greek soldiers the day that 
Greece, who more than any one else is jealous of her 
rights and patriotic duties toward the soil conquered 
by Hellenic sacrifice and blood, may be constrained to 
protect the inalienable rights she has acquired. Nor 
would she in future, and in case of imminent danger, be 
in a position to do this, were she to put her arms and 
munitions at your disposal, even under the condition 
of restitution which you propose. This viewpoint, 
unanimously adopted in concert with the national will, 
is derived from those glorious traditions which make 
the Greek people one with their arms and cannon, as 
well as from the feeling that in the near future they 
may be necessary to their defense. This conviction 
and this sentiment, aside from the motives already set 
forth in my letter of November 22, render inacceptable 
your demand, and oblige the royal Government again 
to refuse. 

Late that evening, also, the Greek sovereign 
sent Count Mercati aboard the Provence as his 
personal representative to give the admiral one 
last warning that any effort to seize the arms of 
Greece by force must end in disaster. The admi- 
ral's reply was to issue a formal communique, 
through the French Government news agency, 
the "Radio": 

Many friends of the Entente foresee as probable 
serious troubles in the streets of Athens, and the vice- 
admiral, commander-in-chief, receives daily numerous 
communications on this head. He believes he should 
declare that these fears happily appear to him unjusti- 

454 



THE BATTLE OF ATHENS 

fied, and that the peaceful inhabitants of the capital 
may be reassured. 

Guarantees, the sincerity and value of which cannot 
be called into question, have been furnished him; and 
besides, he will himself take the necessary measures 
should the instigators of trouble, who are known to 
him, take the risk in spite of everything of disturbing 
the public peace. 

The Greek Government, too, issued a com- 
munique j but not quite so truculent: 

The Government, in accordance with the will of the 
sovereign, recommends to the people of Greece the wis- 
dom of calmness and the avoidance of all excitement in 
giving expression to national feelings, or of hasty ac- 
tion inconsistent with the high ideals of the Greek peo- 
ple, that perfect order may be maintained and no diffi- 
culties provoked ; that the situation may be saved and 
greater evils conjured, the nation thus being enabled 
to face every pressure calculated to wound national 
feelings. 

Aboard the Provence a council of war was 
held. General Bousquier, the French military 
attache, who had had a long conversation that 
afternoon with King Constantine, and to whom 
the Greek sovereign had declared that the arms 
of Greece would be defended, come what might, 
strongly urged the abandonment of the expedi- 
tion. Even the Anglo-French secret police is 
reported as having counseled a moderate course. 

455 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

But Admiral Dartige du Fournet was immova- 
ble. Somewhat earlier he had declared his pur- 
pose to a number of newspaper men aboard the 
Provence: 

I shall cede nothing of my demands and tolerate no 
resistance. I shall take such measures against the 
Government as may be necessary to compel compliance 
with my demands. 

And he added a few words of praise for the 
frank attitude and friendly disposition of King 
Constantine. On this declaration he now stood. 

Toward three o'clock in the morning King 
Constantine realized that any arrangement was 
impossible. He placed the former war minister, 
General Callaris, commander-in-chief of the first 
army corps, a very serious and capable officer 
decidedly friendly to France, in charge of the 
defense of the barracks and military buildings 
of Athens and the entire military operations. In 
sharp contrast to the admiral's declarations to 
the newspaper men, the king's orders were con- 
cise and absolute: the Greeks were not to fire 
first under any circumstances. They were not 
to fire at all unless fired upon. In case of at- 
tack, they were to use the stocks of their guns to 

456 



THE BATTLE OF ATHENS 

beat off those who desh'ed to pass beyond the 
lines being militarily guarded. Artillery was 
not to be called into use in any circumstances, 
save in event of an effort to storm certain speci- 
fied points. When possible, the Greeks were to 
surround the invading troops and, without firing 
upon them, to hold them in the impossibihty of 
active hostility. 

For some days the admiral had been conduct- 
ing extensive reconnaissances of the environs of 
Athens. Aeroplanes had circled above the city, 
automobiles bearing ofiicers on observation duty 
had crisscrossed the surrounding country, maps 
had been prepared, some of which were captured 
during the fighting, showing the various Greek 
barracks and especially the king's palace, in 
colors. Every preparation had been made for 
striking a rapid, successful blow at the military 
prestige of the Greek commander-in-chief. Cer- 
tainly it appeared from his declarations, after the 
failure of the expedition, that the admiral ex- 
pected very efficacious aid from the Venizelists 
within the city. Generally speaking, his plan 
seems to have been to engage all the loyal troops 
at points on the outskirts of the city or in quar- 

457 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

ters distant from the center, denuding the city 
of proper defenders. While the Greek forces 
were thus engaged, the Venizelists within the 
town were to rise, assemble at given meeting- 
points, where a goodly stock of ammunition for 
the arms already distributed to them was stored, 
and by simultaneous action, at a given signal in 
various commanding positions in the city, to para- 
lyze any effort at organized resistance or the 
return of the troops from without the city to put 
down the rebellion. In this way, with a com- 
paratively small number of men, a rapid coup 
d'etat could be effected, the king's palace, even, 
be surprised, and King Constantine made pris- 
oner. The admiral then, himself personally on 
the ground with his landing party, could step 
in to give his aid, in the words of Pamicos Zym- 
brakakis writing to Venizelos, "by an immediate 
consolidation of the new order of things." King 
Constantine would be deposed. Venizelos would 
be called back to rule Greece. The Allies would 
secure through their henchman the use of the 
entire Greek army for their Balkan operations, 
and the problem of the near East would be 
solved. 

458 



THE BATTLE OF ATHENS 

On any other assumption the presence of the 
admiral with his landing party, the use of so in- 
significant an attacking force, and finally the 
serene confidence of the admiral in the success of 
his manoeuver, are inexplicable. With this in 
view, toward nine o'clock on the morning of De- 
cember 1, Admiral Dartige du Fournet disem- 
barked some 3000 French, British, and Italian 
marines, and marched them upon the Hellenic 
capital. 

When I went to the Pirseus early in the morn- 
ing to witness the landing, the French had al- 
ready taken complete military possession of that 
city. On the way I saw a few Greek sentries 
on the road, meager Greek outposts on Nymphs, 
Pnyx and Philopappos hills overlooking the city , 
a few soldiers patrolling the Acropolis, and no 
more. The admiral's three battalions marched, 
the first upon the Greek Government powder- 
magazine, the second upon the Greek engineers' 
barracks at Rouf, and the third battalion, to- 
gether with two companies of British marines 
and a band, straight for the Zappeion, where 
some 1000 French marines were already quar- 
tered. As the columns advanced, they picked 

459 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

up and made prisoners the Greek outposts which 
they encountered, calling into operation the 
king's formal condition in Count Mercati's note 
to the admiral that the forces to be landed would 
not proceed "to the arrest, imprisonment, or de- 
portation of Hellenic subjects." 

According to the Greek general staff, the first 
shot was fired by the Italian contingent at Gen- 
eral Papoulas and a few officers in the neighbor- 
hood of Rouf. It is, however, of little conse- 
quence when the first shot was fired, since a 
general engagement began almost at once at all 
points toward which the invaders were advancing. 
The French fired upon a Greek outpost guarding 
the powder-magazine, who were retiring unre- 
sisting before the French advance. It is claimed 
that these shots were fired with blank-cartridges 
by the French merely to intimidate the Greeks. 
How the Greeks were expected to know that 
blank-cartridges were being used in rifles pointed 
and fired at them is not made clear. At all 
events, the Allied detachment attacking the pow- 
der-magazine was almost six times as great as 
the Greek guard, and at first the latter retired; 
but when Allied machine-guns were brought into 

460 



THE BATTLE OF ATHENS 

play, the Greeks charged and dispersed the in- 
vaders, shutting up almost half this contingent 
in the powder-magazine, virtually prisoners. 

The seventy Greek soldiers I had seen at rest 
on Philopappos Hill were assailed by three Allied 
companies. Here there was no question of blank- 
cartridges. The attack was made before the 
Greeks could form to defend themselves. Los- 
ing several killed and wounded, they retired, 
leaving the French marines in possession of the 
heights. Similarly the Greek guard on Nymphs 
Hill were charged and routed. The Greek wire- 
less plant was seized. The third Allied battalion 
proceeded without serious opposition to the Zap- 
peion, where it reinforced the detachment al- 
ready there. 

Once in possession of the points the admiral's 
orders had directed them to seize, the Allied 
forces did not cease their fire, however. As I 
returned from the Piraeus by way of Rouf , across 
the fields toward Nymphs and Philopappos hills, 
a hot fusillade was in progress from every point 
the Allies occupied. At Rouf I found them 
holding the engineers' barracks, but to no pur- 
pose, since they were completely surrounded 

461 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

inside the building, and virtually prisoners. 
They were keeping up a hot fire, nevertheless, 
and the civilian inhabitants of this crowded quar- 
ter, about their normal business, were forced to 
scuttle quickly from the shelter of one building 
to that of another to avoid drawing an indiscrimi- 
nate rain of bullets. The fields between Rouf 
and the Nymphs Hill were dotted with French 
marines calmly retracing their steps toward the 
port. I stopped one and questioned him. He 
shrugged his shoulders. 

"This is an idiotic business," he said. "Why 
should we be fighting the Greeks?" Another 
French marine and a Greek civilian came up. 
The second marine was asking the way to the 
Piraeus. I interpreted. The Greek replied 
courteously : 

"I am going that way. Tell them to follow 
me. I '11 show them." 

The last I saw of them, the three were march- 
ing across the fields in company, as if their re- 
spective countrymen were not fighting one an- 
other a hundred yards away. I began to feel 
that the French marine was right. It was an 
idiotic business. 



THE BATTLE OF ATHENS 

As I climbed Philopappos Hill, the French 
were firing furiously in the direction of the city; 
it was difficult for me to see at what. No sentry 
challenged me, and the flank of the detachment 
occupying the hill was completely exposed to- 
ward the south and the Piraeus-Athens road. 
From the height one could see people going 
through the streets of Athens as if nothing were 
occurring: women carrying market-baskets; boys 
standing on tjie corners looking up at the fight- 
ing, open-mouthed. Here and there a gray- 
beard guarded a cross street as an improvised 
policeman, a shot-gun slung on his back. A 
Greek Red Cross ambulance drove up to the foot 
of the hill, and four stretcher-bearers got out and 
mounted the rise. They took a wounded French- 
man and two wounded Greeks, lying in the shel- 
ter of separate rocks on the hillside, bore them 
down the slope to the ambulance, and drove away 
with them. 

As I descended the hill I found behind every 
wall, in every gully, in the yard of every house, 
little khaki-clad Greek soldiers, rifles in hand, 
standing guard, but not firing. The French on 
the hill were entirely surrounded, and did not 

463 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

know it. A Greek soldier jerked his thumb back 
over his shoulder at the French, conspicuous in 
their white breeches — all of whom, in range of 
less than a hundred yards, could have been picked 
off in ten minutes by the Greeks below — and 
grinned amiably. A Greek officer crept up to 
where I stood above a ravine filled with Greek 
soldiers. 

"Oh, that 's all right," he said quickly, as if 
apologizing for the careless disposition of the 
French force. "Our orders are not to fire. 
They are safe enough." 

Passing around by the Zappeion, I found the 
same situation. From the huge, barn-like struc- 
ture the French kept up a grueling fire. But 
lying in the streets below the curb, and among the 
bushes of the garden surrounding the building, 
were Greek soldiers making a cordon around 
the entire edifice. The admiral and his men were 
as much prisoners in the Zappeion as if they had 
been forced to surrender. Every time a sortie 
was attempted, a return fire was opened upon 
them and they were forced to retire again within 
the protecting walls of the exposition. 

The whole landing party was at stalemate. 
464i 



THE BATTLE OF ATHENS 

The French had taken the initiative and seized 
what they intended to seize, but they could not 
get out again. Certain British troops, I learned, 
were similarly shut up within the mud walls of 
the cemetery. Some Italians were equally pris- 
oners in the Italian archaeological school. Fail- 
ing a revolution within the city itself, the admiral 
and his forces were helpless. I asked a Greek 
general staff officer the meaning of the whole 
manoeuver. 

"We have established the fact of an armed 
attack with hostile intent upon an open city," he 
replied. "What measures will be taken now will 
depend entirely upon the admiral himself." He 
further stated that some of the Venizelist Greek 
employees of the Anglo-French secret police had 
been firing from windows on ununiformed men 
going to the barracks to volunteer for service. 
Both in the Rouf and in the south Acropolis 
quarters I had seen firing upon civilians from 
windows, and had myself been fired upon. But 
I was unable to establish by whom the firing was 
done. 

In Athens proper, at noon, it looked very un- 
hkely that any attempt at an uprising would be 

465 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

made. The calculations of the Venizelists had 
badly miscarried. The admiral had been vic- 
torious only in a way to bind him hand and foot. 
The city had not been denuded of troops, as 
squads of Greek marines were patrolling the 
streets. Order was being rigidly maintained. 
French and British officers engaged in the con- 
trol of the posts and telegraphs went about in 
uniform, unmolested. A British naval officer 
came from the Pirseus to tea at the British lega- 
tion. He knew nothing of the fighting. In the 
train with him were two Greek infantry officers. 
The train was fired upon by the British from 
Nymphs Hill, to the utter bewilderment of the 
naval officer. At the Athens station one of the 
Greek officers summoned two Greek marines. 

"Where are you going?" the Greek officer 
asked the Englishman. 

"To the legation," he answered. 

"Better have a guard," the Greek replied. 
He gave an order to the two marines. "They 
will see you safely there," he added, and, saluting, 
walked off. 

Throughout the city it was like that. Toward 
two o'clock the firing died down and ceased. 

466 



THE BATTLE OF ATHENS 

Premier Lambros got into telephone communi- 
cation with the admiral, still a prisoner in the 
Zappeion, and an armistice was declared. 
Shortly after two o'clock I was leaning over the 
terrace atop my hotel, below which the whole 
city lay spread out like a map. Just underneath 
the Boule was serving as barracks for the Greek 
sailors policing the city. A sentry walked up 
and down before the gate. Suddenly, a shot was 
fired from somewhere. The sentry dropped his 
rifle and fell, killed. At the same moment M. 
Taigny, the French member of the International 
Financial Commission, was looking out of the 
window of the Athenian Club. He turned sud- 
denly to some Greeks standing by. 

"Some one is firing from the windows of the 
'Nea Hellas' office!" he exclaimed. The "Nea 
Hellas" was a Venizelist organ, and from its win- 
dows, in the twinkling of an eye, two of the 
sailors in the Boule inclosure were hit. 

Simultaneously, in various parts of town, fir- 
ing began, from windows and roofs of the houses 
purposely chosen and stocked with munitions by 
the Venizelists, upon the Greek patrols in the 
streets. The Greek soldiers lying behind the 

467 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

curb guarding the Zappeion were thus attacked 
in the back by a flank fire. At the noise of this 
renewed shooting the Allied troops, ignorant of 
the cause, again opened a fusillade, and the 
Greeks around the Zappeion were caught be- 
tween two fires. A great many were killed. 

With an armistice declared, the firing was so 
inexplicable that every one was confounded. 
The French and British prisoners in the Zap- 
peion, believing the renewed conflict to indicate 
the arrival of reinforcements, endeavored to make 
a sortie. But unfortunately they chose the di- 
rection of the royal palace for their attempt. 
The Greeks, equally confused by being fired upon 
from behind, and seeing an attack directed 
against the palace, believed the armistice had 
been violated by the invaders and that an effort 
was being made to seize the king by force. 
Light artillery was therefore called into play for 
the first time, and the admiral's sortie was forced 
to return to cover. 

I had gone to the palace the moment the firing 
began anew. The king sent Colonel Pierre 
Mano to order the Greek troops to cease firing 
at once, which was done. The prime minister 

468 



THE BATTLE OF ATHENS 

was trying to get the French admiral by tele- 
phone, to ask the meaning of this renewed com- 
bat, after the declaration of an armistice. Event- 
ually, he arranged for a meeting of the king and 
the Allied ministers at the palace at half -past 
five to discuss the situation. The firing began 
to die down again. Suddenly, without warning, 
just above the Acropolis, across the open city of 
Athens, with its streets refilling with crowds of 
the curious, with everywhere women and children 
and non-combatants, who had been given no time 
to leave, a steady, methodical fire of 5- and 12- 
inch shells from the guns of the fleet began to 
fall among the houses of the cradle of civiliza- 
tion. I have been under shell-fire frequently 
since the war began, but I could not believe the 
monstrous thing. 

"Surely those are your guns !" I said to a Greek 
staff officer beside me. He raised his head with 
that quick negative gesture so characteristic of 
the Greeks. 

"Must be the Allied fleet," he replied. "An 
open city!" 

The king was in the garden, with a pair of 
binoculars, watching the shells as they cried on 

469 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

their way through the air like giant rockets. I 
went out and talked with him a moment. As 
one 5-inch shell passed just over a corner of 
the palace and, flashing between the Italian and 
Dutch legations, fell into a tiny laborer's cottage 
beyond, wrecking the building in a whirlpool of 
smoke and dust and flying splinters, King Con- 
st antine watched the house in silence. 

"Vive la Belgique !" he said finally, quietly, as 
if to himself. 

Inside the palace the premier was again at 
the telephone. The admiral disclaimed all re- 
sponsibility for the bombardment. Princess 
Helen, King Constantine's eldest daughter, 
watched the falling shells from one of the win- 
dows. A shell dropped just below it, but, strik- 
ing in the soft, wet ground, did not explode. She 
opened the window and looked out at it curi- 
ously as it lay harmless against the building. 
The queen came into the room where we sat, seek- 
ing any women servants of the palace to send 
to the cellars. When they demurred, she said: 
"I have already sent my daughter ^ to the 

1 Princess Catharine, three and a half years old, whose god- 
fathers are the army and navy of Greece. 

470 



THE BATTLE OF ATHENS 

cellar. It is better to take no risks." A 12-inch 
shell fell in the palace garden and exploded. 
Huge, j agged pieces flew about, destroying trees 
and shrubbery. A piece two feet long, four 
inches wide, and with edges as sharp as a razor 
fell at King Constantine's feet. Count Mercati 
rushed out to the side of his chief, buckling on a 
revolver. God knows what he expected to do 
with so puny an instrument of war! The bom- 
bardment continued. In the barracks across 
from the Dutch legation shells fell monoto- 
nously, one after another. Occasionally one 
went wild among the newer apartment houses. 
Two huts were hit in a near-by field ; in one an old 
woman and her grandchild were blown to bits. 
In another the shell passed through roof and 
walls, flashing harmless between a mother and 
her baby, sleeping on a trundle-bed. 

Dusk was falling when the four Allied min- 
isters reached the palace. The precision of the 
fleet's fire had been improved, and most of the 
shells were falling within or near the palace 
grounds, the bombardment evidentlj?^ being di- 
rected at the royal residence, with its women and 
children, as well as the King of the Hellenes. 

471 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

When the diplomatists arrived. King Constan- 
tine remounted to his study to receive them. 
The bombardment still continued with methodi- 
cal accuracy. As the four ministers entered the 
room where the king awaited them, a 12-inch 
shell went screaming by the windows. 

"Are those your arguments, gentlemen?" the 
sovereign asked coolly. 



472 



CHAPTER XXVI 

anathema! 

To end the sad business of December 1, King 
Constantine agreed to deliver to Admiral Dartige 
du Fournet six batteries of mountain artil- 
lery^ The Allied naval authories had al- 
ready seized two batteries of field artillery on 
Corfu, thus making the king's concession eight 
batteries in all. The admiral, on his part, still 
a prisoner with his men in the Zappeion, 
agreed to withdraw his troops on board his ves- 
sels, the Greek monarch offering to give them 
an escort aboard, to see that they arrived with- 
out incident. The terms were announced to the 
admiral by French Minister Guillemin; the ad- 
miral accepted. He was hardly in position to 
do otherwise. 

The morning of December 2, the admiral and 
his staff and certain officers of the Anglo-French 
secret police returned to the Piraeus and went 
aboard the Provence. Before leaving, Admiral 

473 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Dartige du Fournet called upon General Cal- 
laris and explained that he had had no intention 
of attacking the Greeks or of precipitating con- 
flict. He asserted, also, that he had not ordered 
the bombardment of an open city filled with 
women and children. General Callaris ex- 
plained, in reply, that his orders to his men were 
in no circumstances to fire first upon the in- 
vaders, and that he could only regret that the 
presence of armed troops upon neutral soil had 
given an impression — evidently, in view of the 
admiral's declaration, a mistaken one — that they 
were there with hostile intent. The admiral's 
statement to the newspaper correspondents that 
he would "take such measures against the Gov- 
ernment necessary to compel compliance with 
his demands" was tactfully ignored in these for- 
mal amenities. 

After noon an escort of Greek infantry ac- 
companied the force shut up in the Zappeion, 
with all its material, to the harbor. The whole 
length of the road from Athens to the Pirseus 
was guarded by the Greek sailors, whom, so short 
a time before, the admiral had forced to leave 
their beloved ships. As the French and British 

474! 




GENERAL SARRAIL 
Leaving hia headquarters at the French School, Saloniki 



ANATHEMA! 

marines marched out of their prison, some of the 
men, less on their dignity than the officers, waved 
their hats and cheered the Greeks. The Greeks 
guarding the road grinned from ear to ear and 
presented arms. Queen Sophie took personal 
charge of the care of the wounded of both sides, 
those whom it was impossible to move being left 
in the Greek military hospital. I visited them 
myself, and found the Allied wounded excellently 
cared for. One, a French marine, Sebastien 
Dale, said: 

"Our Greek comrades are very good to us. 
They take turns reading to us." The "Greek 
comrades" were the Greek soldiers whom the 
French had wounded! Every day King Con- 
stantine sent an aide-de-camp to see that the care 
of the Allied wounded was the best Greece could 
give. 

Prime Minister Lambros in person saw to the 
release of the Italian troops that had been sur- 
rounded in the Italian school. Some 150 British 
were at first missing, and the wildest rumors of 
their murder and mutilation were current in the 
English colony of Athens, some of them even 
finding their way into the British press through 

477 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

untrustworthy Piraeus reports sent by corre- 
spondents who had fled Athens in the early hours 
of the fighting. Later they made their appear- 
ance, however, from the red-light district of 
Athens, where they had repaired when the armis- 
tice was declared. 

The battle of Athens cost the Greeks 3 
officers, 2 of them colonels, and 26 soldiers 
dead; 5 officers, 45 soldiers, 4 marines, and 
7 civilians, among whom were women and 
one child, wounded. The bombardment, aside 
from the fighting, killed a woman and a baby 
and wounded a number of men civilians. The 
French lost 2 officers and 45 marines, killed; 
and 2 officers and 96 marines, wounded. The 
Allied dead were transferred in Greek army 
ambulances to the Russian hospital at the Piraeus 
the moment the armistice was declared. 

The arrangements for the Allied evacuation 
of Athens were completed during the night of 
December 1. Before their departure most of 
the members of the Anglo-French secret police 
quietly slipped out of town, and the Greeks for 
the first time in three months regained control of 
their own telegraphs, posts, railways, and police. 

478 



ANATHEMA! 

To the disinterested observer the admiral's readi- 
ness to withdraw all of his troops from Athens, 
even the famous guard of the French legation 
and the hired gunmen of the Anglo-French secret 
police, was subject to one of two interpretations: 
either all of this occupation of Greece by foreign 
troops and agents in foreign pay had never been 
necessary at all, and had been established merely 
to exasperate the Greeks; or it was more than 
ever necessary at this particular juncture, when 
revolution had broken out in the heart of the 
Hellenic capital. If the admiral had ever had 
any reason to land marines "to assist in main- 
taining order," he now had tenfold that reason 
for keeping a certain force in Athens. Assum- 
ing that he had not previously acted merely out 
of bravado, to impose a disagreeable control upon 
a friendly and neutral people, his action in con- 
senting now to withdraw every Allied marine 
from Athens was plainly either cowardice or a 
direct incitement and condoning of disorders. 
Cowardice is out of the question. It is therefore 
not only logical, but it is the only possible logic, 
that the British and French ministers, in agree- 
ing to the withdrawal of the Allied troops at this 

479 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

moment, accepted a very large part of the re- 
sponsibility of what might follow; and, indeed, 
invited precisely what did follow. 

I have seen many revolutions in my time, 
in Russia, Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala, and 
Peru. Revolutions as a general rule are not 
afternoon teas. It was amazing to me, therefore, 
to hear the outcry among the Allied diplomatists 
and in the American legation against the rapid 
effectiveness with which this abortive attempt at 
revolution was put down. It is true that in com- 
parison with the draft riots in New York during 
the Civil War, or with the street fighting I saw 
in Russia in 1905, or even with the accounts I 
have had of eye-witnesses of the Dublin affair two 
years ago, this revolution in Athens was child's 
play, very speedily and mercifully dealt with. 
I do not know precisely how those who protested 
against its alleged cruelty would recommend that 
armed rebellion in the capital city of a country 
be handled ; probably by putting salt on the tails 
of the revolutionists ! The present war has given 
rise to many shining examples of hypocrisy; but 
I have yet to see the parallel of the self -righteous- 
ness with which the Greek Government has been 

480 



ANATHEMA! 

criticized for its prompt, businesslike reestablish- 
ment of order in the Greek capital following the 
events of December 1. It is worthy of record, 
however, that indignation over the events of De- 
cember 2 among the Allies is an afterthought. 
At the time those who remained in Athens and 
who were not in hiding were inclined to accept 
what occurred rather as what might have been 
expected in the circumstances. 

To say that feeling among the Greeks ran high 
against those who had fired upon their own com- 
patriots from behind scarcely expresses the ex- 
tent and depth of Greek sentiment. The point 
of view of the loyal Greeks was simplicity itself : 
an hostile, armed, foreign force had landed on 
Greek territory and marched on the ancient capi- 
tal with the declared purpose of seizing the arms 
of the Hellenic people. While the Greeks as vol- 
unteer soldiers were engaged in defending their 
arms and their soil from invaders, a small band 
of conspirators, plotting to overthrow the con- 
stitutional Government of Greece, fired from the 
shelter of darkened rooms upon those who in 
the open were fighting the soldiers of three 
great powers. Once, therefore, the invaders 

481 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

were disposed of, every loyal Greek turned his 
attention to settling accounts with these "assas- 
sins," as they called the revolutionists. 

It is necessary, also, in order truly to appreci- 
ate Greek feeling at this moment to remember 
that for six months the pressure of the Allied 
control officers had bound the hands of Greek 
justice and stifled the voice of Greek public 
opinion whenever either fell at cross purposes 
with the real or imaginary interests of the Allies 
and their proteges, the Venizelist revolutionaries. 
The Venizelist press had been free to rave at 
the constitutional sovereign of Greece in terms 
of unmeasured violence ; to accuse him of treach- 
ery, treason, madness, and brutality ; to abuse him 
with every epithet and attribute to him every 
ignoble motive, and these attacks had been widely 
reproduced in the press of the Allied countries 
and the United States. The Venizelist papers 
were free to print libel, forgeries, or doctored 
matter purporting to be the reproduction of offi- 
cial documents. In all of this "freedom of the 
press" the Entente powers had protected the Ven- 
izelists. On the other hand, the loyal press had 
been muzzled, intimidated, and coerced. De- 

482 



ANATHEMA! 

spatches from Athens to local newspapers in the 
provinces were simply stopped by the officers of 
the Allied telegraphic control. Letters, the most 
private kind of letters, within Greece, were 
opened and censored by Allied officers not to con-, 
ceal any news of vital military value, but to ex- 
asperate the loyal Greeks, and to serve the politi- 
cal ends of Venizelos and his followers ; in a word, 
to help impose upon the Greeks a government 
they abhorred and a rule four fifths of them 
would rather give up their lives than accept. 
Any drunken bravo in a respectable cafe, annoy- 
ing peaceable diners, had only to shout, "I belong 
to the Anglo-French secret police!" and the 
diners must accept his rowdyism with what grace 
they could. No Greek policeman dared to arrest 
the offender for fear of creating a diplomatic in- 
cident. A deserter from the Greek army in uni- 
form could walk about the streets and preach 
desertion to his former comrades ; he could not be 
punished because he was a Venizelist and, in the 
words of the French minister, "the Entente 
powers cannot remain indifferent to the lot of the 
friends of Venizelos." 

These measures of pression were so omnipres- 
483 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

ent that they touched in some degree every man, 
woman, and child in Greece. The blockade 
alone, undeclared, but effective since September 
30, was sufficient to exasperate the whole Hellenic 
people beyond bearing. Behind all these meas- 
ures, which they considered tyranny, they saw 
the hand of Venizelos driving through to success 
his limitless ambition, backed by the bayonets 
and cannon of strangers. It may seem remark- 
able, but it is none the less true, that there was 
comparatively little rancor against the French 
and the British for these intolerable conditions of 
life. The Greeks looked upon the French and 
British as the victims of the Cretan's machina- 
tions, and their wrath fell upon the man whom 
they held responsible for all their trials — Veni- 
zelos himself. 

For these reasons, then, the popular reckoning 
with the Venizelists might have been expected 
to prove much more severe than was actually 
the case. In the lower quarters of town, among 
the refugees from Asia Minor, Egypt, and Con- 
stantinople, who had acted as ward heelers and 
political gangmen for Venizelos in his campaign, 
I dare say the death-rate was high, but the vic- 

484 



ANATHEMA! 

tims unwept. A great many Venizelists were 
marked men, not because any concerted plan had 
been made to mark down certain persons for 
punishment, but because during the six months 
of Allied protection of Venizelists, by their own 
insolence, tyranny over their neighbors, and 
boasts of what Venizelos (with the assistance of 
the Allies) was going to do to the constitutional 
Government of Greece, many of them had 
marked themselves for drastic treatment the mo- 
ment opportunity offered. 

The retirement of the Allied troops from 
Athens and the flight of the Anglo-French secret 
police furnished the opportunity. No time was 
lost in seizing it. While the admiral and his men 
were still in Athens, early in the morning of 
December 1, the hunt for the conspirators began. 
The houses from which shots had been fired upon 
the loyal troops were isolated and the men in them 
kept there by cordons of sailors. The sailors, 
who had lost a number of comrades by shots 
fired from windows while they kept guard in 
the streets during the fighting of the day before, 
had a few scores to settle on their own account. 
They settled them. 

485 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

The people of the Balkan States have no light 
hand in their quarrels. The Greeks are no ex- 
ception to this general rule, the sinister heritage 
of centuries of Turkish domination. But in this 
instance there was a sort of terrifying, yet child- 
ish, gaiety, a startling light-heartedness in the 
way in which not the sailors alone, but civilians, 
men and even women, punished those whom they 
called traitors. I recall one sailor, kneeling on 
the doorway of the telegraph office, who con- 
ducted single-handed a veritable battle with sev- 
eral men shooting into the street from the win- 
dows of the Venizelist newspaper, the "Ethnos." 

"For months they have done whatever they 
liked," he said in English, between shots. 
"They 've blackguarded our king and betrayed 
our country and run to the Allies for protection 
even when they 've been legally imprisoned. 
They have n't even gone to Saloniki to join that 
'anti-Bulgarian' army they like so much to talk 
about, — they would have been safe there, — but 
they have stuck around here and made plots 
and incited riots and caused rows for which the 
Allies have blamed us and punished the whole 
of Greece. Yesterday, when we were fighting 

486 



ANATHEMA ! 

for the honor of the nation, they shot us in the 
back, the dogs! Now it is their day of reckon- 
ing!" In his homely way my sailor friend ex- 
pressed everybody's feeling. Premier Lambros 
declared to me : 

Now that the external question is in the way of set- 
tlement, internal order will be rigorously imposed. All 
the houses in which individuals barricaded themselves 
yesterday and from which they fired upon the national 
forces as well as upon civilians, will be surrounded and 
the individuals who this morning, insist upon disturb- 
ing the public order, will be taken into custody by force 
if necessary and held for subsequent trial. No peace- 
able individual, whatever he has done, need fear he will 
not receive impartial justice. Only armed resistance 
to the reestablishment of public order endangers any 
man. 

This program was carried out to the letter. 
Two machine-guns were trained on Venizelos's 
house, and some eighteen Cretans who had estab- 
lished themselves in their compatriot's residence 
were forced to surrender. I saw them taken to 
prison under a strong guard. They were not 
mistreated. Some of those taken in other places 
undoubtedly were roughly handled, however. 
In one instance, after several hours of siege of 
the top floor of a hotel opposite the post-ofSce, 
in the course of which firing was Hvely on both 

487 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

sides, those in the hotel were forced to give up. 
Before a guard of police could protect them from 
the mob, two men were badly beaten, but still 
able to walk off unaided when finally rescued. 
The presses of the Venizelist newspapers were 
generally wrecked. General Corakas, who for 
weeks had been Venizelos's "recruiting" agent in 
Athens, and who had directed the payment of 
five dollars a head to deserting soldiers, was sum- 
marily treated by soldiers whom his agents had 
approached without success. Mayor Benakis of 
Athens was reported to have been cruelly mis- 
treated. I saw him, as he was being taken to 
jail, walking jauntily under a careful guard. 
He showed no signs then of having been roughly 
handled, though I believe that a short time before, 
in the process of his arrest, the crowd had been 
none too tender with him. 

During the arrests there was a good deal of 
miscellaneous firing, mostly in the air, with a 
view to discourage any further spread of the 
revolutionary attempt. Cavalry patrols in the 
principal streets soon put an end to these demon- 
strations. Two notorious Venizelist workers 
were taken into custody, and found in possession 

488 



ANATHEMA! 

of very large sums of money, evidently intended 
for some use connected with the plot to over- 
throw the Government. The total arrests on all 
counts numbered fewer than two hundred. 

During the arrests, thirteen loyalist soldiers, 
six armed reservists and five unarmed civilians 
were killed by shots from houses occupied by 
Venizelist revolutionaries. Of the latter, three 
were killed and two wounded in the house-to- 
street fighting. A subsequent search of a num- 
ber of houses, at some of which I was personally 
a witness, revealed large stores of ammunition 
gathered in the private residences of Venizelists, 
presumably for revolutionary purposes. In 
Venizelos's house alone were found 66 rifles, 
6,000 rounds of rifle ammunition, 49 revolvers 
with cartridges, 2,500 dynamite capsules with 40 
yards of fuse, and 15 hand grenades. 

Several employees of the British secret police 
made a sally from the annex of the legation in 
an effort to rescue some one under arrest, but 
were quickly forced to seek refuge again in the 
diplomatic character of the building. Two sec- 
retaries of the British legation were arrested, 
but speedily released upon establishing their 

489 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

identity. Despite the removal of the formidable 
armed guard of French marines so long main- 
tained at the French legation, the legation and 
its members suffered no inconvenience. Certain 
hotels and private houses were shot up by those 
who saw, or thought they saw, firing from the 
windows. An American business man of stand- 
ing swears he saw firing from the offices of the 
French government news-agency, the "Radio." 
Former Premier Zaimis declared that he saw 
firing from the windows of the British Eastern 
Telegraph Company office. An employee of the 
Dutch legation complained that his house was en- 
tered and searched. A Spanish insurance com- 
pany alleged that its office safe was robbed during 
the troubles. Outside of these isolated instances, 
what disturbance there was, was among the 
Greeks. The foreign residents of Athens had 
little of which to complain. A high official of 
the Greek Government declared to me : 

No one suspects the admiral or the members of the 
British and French legations of being aware of this plot 
to effect a coup d'etat in connexion with the admiral's 
landing. They were undoubtedly victims of a con- 
spiracy on the part of their Venizelist friends, which 
explains why the admiral, consistently misinformed by 
the Venizelists, refused to believe that the Government 

490 



ANATHEMA! 

seriously meant to persist in its refusal to surrender 
the arms of Greece. 

The idea of a revolution against King Constantine 
in Athens is absurd. The efforts of not more than a 
couple of hundred conspirators to overthrow the con- 
stitutional government only resulted in enraging the 
entire populace against the perpetrators, thus causing 
the regretable incidents of this morning. 

By evening Athens was again normal. It 
would have been impossible to guess that a foreign 
invasion and an unsuccessful revolution had both 
taken place within the space of thirty-six hours. 

In the Pirseus, however, there was less calm. 
Certain Venizelists who had the ear of Admiral 
Dartige du Fournet had rushed off to the 
Provence and filled the credulous sailor with a 
tale that the Greek army was marching against 
the French fleet. Just how the army was to ad- 
vance across the waters of Keratsina Bay was 
not shown, but the admiral hastily landed a force 
in the port during the night of December 2, oc- 
cupied and fortified the city hall, and sent an 
advance guard, under the Venizelist terrorist 
Paul Ghyparis, to seize and entrench Castello 
Hill, between Athens and the Piraeus. The 
panic into which the British and French authori- 

491 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

ties were thrown by these unfounded rumors of 
an attack the very nature of which was absurd, 
constitutes a rather silly, but convincing, proof 
of the power of the Venizelists over the Allied 
diplomatic and naval officers. Captain de 
Roquefeuille, the French naval attache and head 
of the French secret police, was in so ridiculous 
a panic that he told one of his colleagues that the 
blood of his wife and babies would be upon his 
head if he permitted them to remain in Athens, 
where they were certain to be murdered. One of 
the secretaries of the British legation implored 
the American minister to hoist the American flag 
over his private residence, to protect it. Several 
Allied diplomatists sent wives and children to the 
American legation for safety. Even the Ameri- 
can minister himself, always in intimate touch 
with the Venizelists, was so moved by their fright 
that he urged me to take my wife to the Piraeus 
where she might be out of danger. From the 
pulpit of the English church, the advice was 
given to all British nationals to flee Athens at 
once. Some of the most supercilious members of 
the British and French colonies, previously, under 
the guns of their fleet, insolently contemptuous 

492 



ANATHEMA ! 

of the Greeks, scurried out of town as secretly 
as possible, with a little, hastily-packed hand 
luggage. 

By evening the whole ugly exhibition of pol- 
troonery was at its height. People paid fabulous 
prices for cabs to take them to the Pirseus. To 
add to the confusion, the report was confirmed 
that, as soon as the major part of the Allied na- 
tionals had left the city, the French admiral pro- 
posed to bombard it without further warning. 
Yet there was not the slightest reason for any 
of this display of fear, except mob panic. Life 
in Athens took its usual course. Cafes and mov- 
ing-picture theaters were filled. The Italian 
minister and his staff, in sharp contrast with his 
less cool-headed colleagues, went about his usual 
pursuits and advised his nationals that a flight 
from Athens would be sheer folly. 

All of this panic was the work of the defeated 
Venizelists, themselves in an agony of fear at the 
prospect of being tried and punished for their 
attempted revolution. So long immune from the 
processes of the law, thanks to the protection 
that they had enjoyed from the British and 
French ministers, they could not pay with cour- 

493 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

age the price of their failure to overturn the con- 
stitutional government. It was their panic 
which, communicated to the British and French 
nationals, failed only by a narrow margin of fix- 
ing upon a French officer the shame of again 
bombarding, this time in cold blood and without 
excuse, an open city filled with women and chil- 
dren. Only King Constantine's prompt action 
in sending one of his officers of highest rank 
aboard the Provence to calm the French admiral 
avoided disaster. 

Meanwhile, to care for their nationals who had 
fled the capital, the British and French ministers 
requisitioned the Greek transatlantic steamer, 
King Constantine, aboard which all were quar- 
tered. They found themselves in peculiar case, 
as did, indeed, their diplomatic representatives. 
Should they return to Athens, it would be a tacit 
admission that they had been needlessly afraid. 
Few were willing to do this openly. In order, 
therefore, to justify their panic, it became neces- 
sary to assume the existence of real grounds for 
flight from the Greek capital. Every extrava- 
gant story was therefore spread and enlarged 
upon; the events of December 1 and 2 took on 

494 



ANATHEMA! 

a fantastic character, amusing to those who had 
been abroad during both days; talk of murder, 
atrocity, and deep plottings that would do honor 
to the writer of a moving-picture scenario were 
recounted in whispers — and believed. These 
stories spread to the British and French press, 
and in London, Paris, and the United States the 
impression was generally current that Athens 
had witnessed and was still witnessing something 
like a Boxer siege of Pekin. Meanwhile, those 
of us who remained in the Greek capital went 
about our business as dully as in times of world 
peace. 

Against this wanton exaggeration and falsifi- 
cation of what had actually occurred. Premier 
Lambros protested to the foreign press. 

It should not be forgotten that certain instances 
which we all regret had, after all, their origin in the 
rage of the people against those who, while Greece was 
defending herself, sought to stab her in the back by 
an attempt at revolution conceived, prepared and pro- 
tected by the paid agents of the Entente Powers. The 
excesses, of which there were really few, were of course 
unjustifiable; but they were due to the exasperation of 
the populace and the army, which is merely the Greek 
people, not unatural under the circumstances. Those 
who suffered were principally those against whom 
proof existed of a seditious plot. When the plot be- 

495 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

came generally known, public sentiment was inflamed, 
as is the case in any country. The Government could 
scarcely foresee these circumstances ; but the moment 
order was restored, took steps to arrest and punish 
those guilty of any excess. 

Mr. Droppers, the American minister, affected 
by the stories of the abuses which his Venizelist 
friends brought to him, undertook to voice a pro- 
test to the Greek Government against the treat- 
ment.of the Venizelists. To this protest Foreign 
Minister Zalocostas formally replied: 

The Government is decided to punish every person 
guilty of having committed illegal acts or exceeded in- 
structions, and a severe investigation will be begun to 
this end so soon as acts of this nature are brought to 
the attention of the Government. 

In this connexion the Foreign Minister considers 
it his duty to recall to your attention that by his note 
of November 28, he warned the neutral Powers of the 
tragic position in which the Greek nation had been 
placed as a result of the measures taken against Greece, 
and of the consequences which the French admiral's 
insistence upon obtaining the Greek war material might 
well have. 

King Constantine also telegraphed a full and 
very just account of the events of December 1 
and 2 to Prince George in Paris, for communi- 
cation to Premier Briand, as well as to King 
George of England and the Czar of Russia. At 

496 



ANATHEMA! 

the same time he asked these heads of state to see 
that Greece had at least fair play in the Allied 
press. His appeal was without avail. 

Matters were still undecided when, on Decem- 
her 7, King Constantine told me that he was per- 
fectly ready to meet the Allied ministers half- 
way in any arrangement they proposed ; that he 
would accept disarmament, since the disarma- 
ment of the Greek army was virtually a fact 
already, but that the arms must remain in the 
country; that he would accept any Allied mili- 
tary control thought necessary to the protection 
of General Sarrail's flanks, but that the control 
must be loyally maintained for military purposes 
and not with the aim of conducting or favoring 
a rebellion against the constitutional government 
of Greece. He added that, even if the AUies 
"were to require that all the Venizelists arrested 
for complicity with the revolutionary plot were 
released, he was prepared to use what influence 
he might have to obtain that, also ; but on condi- 
tion that the released Venizelists go to Saloniki 
and fight the Bulgarians, as they professed to de- 
sire to do, not remain in Athens to fight Greeks 
and promote civil war in a country at peace. 

497 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

This view of the King of the Hellenes was con- 
veyed to the British and French ministers. Their 
reply was a formal declaration on December 8 
of a blockade of the ports of Greece not under 
Venizelist control. No reason was given for the 
blockade, and no conditions were named compli- 
ance with which could secure the lifting of this 
measure of starvation. 

At the same time that this announcement was 
made Admiral Dartige du Fournet lined up his 
squadron for a bombardment of Athens. Cap- 
tain Joubert, of the French navy, privately 
warned a number of people to leave the city as a 
bombardment was imminent, but no formal no- 
tice was given. Only the prompt action of the 
Italian minister, Count Bosdari, succeeded in 
once more avoiding a catastrophe. The Ameri- 
can minister is my authority for the statement 
that this was the third time within the week that 
the French admiral had been on the point of 
bombarding the Greek capital, each time without 
previous warning. 

As the British naval authorities at Malta and 
Gibraltar had so held the supplies for Greece in 
check since September 30 that the average Greek 

498 



ANATHEMA ! 

was at some pains to keep body and soul together, 
the formal declaration of a blockade came as 
nothing new. Since November 30 not a single 
ship had been permitted to make or leave the port 
of the Piraeus. The Greeks were already almost 
desperate for food when this new oppressive 
measure went into effect. It was accompanied 
by a formal order to all Entente nationals to 
quit Greece by December 10. Even those who 
wished to remain, as, for example, the English 
governess of Princess Alice's children, were 
sternly ordered to embark aboard the King 
Constantine without delay. So needless and ab- 
surd was this order that it was difficult for the 
impartial observer not to conclude that the step 
was taken rather as justification of the undigni- 
fied flight of British and French nationals a week 
previously, than for any good reason of national 
policy. 

Such, at least, appeared to be the view of the 
Russian and Italian ministers, who refused to 
order their colonies to embark and openly pro- 
nounced the whole business a silly comedy. The 
Greek Government, also, formally protested to 
the United States, Holland, and Spain — the neu- 

499 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

tral nations having diplomatic representatives in 
Greece — ^not only against the inhumanity of the 
measure itself, but against its imposition without 
any assigned reason, or any conditions stated for 
its termination. The document read as follows: 

Greece, at peace with the Entente Powers, never 
ceasing to give them the most extraordinary proofs of 
her firm desire to maintain with them the reciprocal 
ties of friendship, sees with painful surprise these same 
Powers have recourse to a measure toward Greece so 
manifestly contrary to international law and the prin- 
ciples of international justice and liberty. While 
awaiting explanations of the character and motives of 
the blockade, the Government cannot but formulate 
the liveliest and most legitmate protest against the 
application of such a measure to a friendly, neutral 
people. 

At the same time King Constantine had long 
conferences with the British and Russian minis- 
ters in which he made clear to them the position 
he had already stated to me and offered to accept 
any arrangement on a military, not a political, 
basis. He declared categorically that he had no 
more intention of attacking or declaring war on 
the Allies now than when he had given the same 
assurance to Lord Kitchener, and that no act of 
his as commander-in-chief of the Greek armies 
had any other purpose than the legitimate defense 

500 



ANATHEMA! 

of Hellas from invasion by the Venizelists from 
the north, or by the Allies themselves from the 
sea: He said further that even if the Entente's 
chosen policy cf starving the Greek nation into 
submission were to force him to try to open up 
communications with the Central empires, in or- 
der to secure the food his people required, he 
would not attack Sarrail's position at Saloniki, 
and as earnest of this, he declared his readiness 
to order the continuance of the southward ship- 
ment of his troops from Thessaly, suspended on 
December 1, so that even any remote possibility 
of danger to Sarrail's flank might be removed. 
With this candid declaration King Constantine 
hoped to alter the suspicious attitude of Great 
Britain and France and to reestablish a frank 
relationship based on a better understanding of 
the sentiments animating the Greeks. 

Count Bosdari was also exceedingly active to 
this end. His view was that the Greek mon- 
arch's proposal satisfied every military desire of 
the Allies. He regarded Venizelos as a handi- 
cap rather than an asset to the Entente and 
pointed out to his colleagues that the admiral's 
landing on December 1 and the abortive Venize- 

501 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

list revolution of December 2 had cost the Allies 
and their protege, Venizelos, every possible hope 
of securing more "volunteers" from among the 
Greeks. As he put it, succinctly: 

"You cannot expect the Greeks to fight against 
us one day, and with us the next." 

But it was not that they had fought the Allied 
marines that affected Greek feeling at this mo- 
ment. The Greeks bore no rancor for the in- 
vasion and took extraordinarily little pride in 
their successful resistance to the armed forces of 
three great powers. Ordinarily no more modest 
about their exploits than in the days of Homer, 
one might have expected cries of victory and a 
certain swagger. There was none of that. The 
tone of the press was rather apologetic : 

It should now be clear to the Entente Powers that 
the Greek people support their sovereign. It is a pity 
it took bloodshed to estabHsh this fact, but it was 
worth it from the point of view of both sides if it is 
now clear that no fundamental hostility to the Allies 
but merely patriotism and loyalty to our soldier king 
lay at the bottom of our resistance. 

Unhappily, though it seems incredible that the 
events of December 1 should not have convinced 
even M. Guillemin of the fatuousness of his policy 

502 



ANATHEMA! 

of supporting Venizelos, the British and French 
ministers seemed to have learned nothing fronl 
what occurred. Certainly, with their American 
colleague, they were virtually alone in their con- 
tention that Venizelos still represented the will 
of the majority of the Greek people. Almost 
every Venizelist who remained in Athens and who 
had clung to the Cretan in the honest belief that 
Venizelos represented real Greek opinion, ad- 
mitted error quite frankly. It required the Lon- 
don "Times" to put the opposite case in a few 
words. Its correspondent in Athens, himself 
previously a Venizelist, followed the events of 
December 1 and 2 by a sober review of the actual 
situation as then revealed. He stated candidly 
that he, for one, was convinced that Venizelos no 
longer had the least chance of leading the Hel- 
lenic people. The "Times" published his article 
under a caption intimating that the correspondent 
had been forced to write it under duress, and then 
discharged him as correspondent on the gi'ound 
that his dispatch was not consonant with the 
policy of his Britannic Majesty's Government. 
This, indeed, appeared to be the course settled 
upon in London and Paris by both govern- 

503 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

ments. The Greek people had demonstrated 
•that they would have none of Venizelos. Well 
— "the people be damned!" The Anglo-French 
secret police had fled Athens, but the directors 
had no intention of abandoning the huge sums 
they had previously dispensed or of exchanging 
the joys of a care-free life for the humdrum 
existence of the trenches. They, therefore, 
seized the island of Syra, whence they intended 
to continue their efforts to force Venizelos on 
the Greeks at any cost. "Le Miroir," a French 
magazine, recounts 'the taking of this island: 

A machine gun belonging to the British landing 
force, was pointed down the principal street ; every at- 
tempt at resistance was forestalled, thanks to these 
rapid measures.-'- 

One after another the islands of Zante, Naxos, 
Ithaca, Tinos, Paros, Kea, and Santorin were 
similarly seized by Allied naval detachments, the 
constitutional officials arrested, leading citizens 
loyal to the constitution imprisoned, and Venize- 
list office holders established in a control of the 
islands maintained by Allied cannon. An official 
account of the occupation of Zante reads : 

i"Le Miroir," December 31, 1916. 

504 



ANATHEMA! 

Detachments of French marines have debarked at 
Zante and, under threat of bombardment, occupied dif- 
ferent buildings and left a garrison. 

The French naval officer occuping Kea, posted 
a proclamation stating: 

As a result of the ambush of Athens, in the course 
of which Allied sailors were treacherously shot with- 
out warning by the Greeks, the French Government as 
a first measure of pression, has declared a blockade of 
Greece. . . . The application of this measure, dictated 
by the murderers of Athens themselves, will enormously 
strike at Greece from a material, commercial and indus- 
trial point of view. . . . From a feeling of justice, the 
French admiral regrets that the innocent must suffer 
the same as the guilty. . . . 

On the whole, the proclamation reads quite like 
one of those the Germans posted in Belgium 
every few days in the early part of the war. 

At the occupation of each of these islands in 
this summary way, the island's "adhesion to the 
national movement," was widely heralded in the 
British and French press and the claun set up in 
France and England that, because of these rapid 
accessions to the cause of the Cretan among the 
people of the Greek islands, Venizelos's "pro- 
visional government" should be recognized as the 
legal government of Greece. As the rigor of the 
blockade increased in the islands, always less sup- 

505 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

plied with food than the mainland, French and 
British boats loaded with breadstuffs would ap- 
pear off one after another of those whose inhabit- 
ants were literally starving and off'ered to supply 
the people with all the food they desired if they 
would but desert allegiance to the constitutional 
government of Greece and join the Venizelist 
revolution. The Allied blockade of Greece made 
it impossible for the constitutional government to 
send relief to the islands thus starved into sub- 
mission and the inhabitants knew it ; but even so, 
in many instances the islanders replied : 

"We have no need of food at the price of our 
loyalty to our king." 

Meanwhile, King Constantine, daily in touch 
with the sufferings of his people, was doing what 
he could to reach some sort of an understanding 
with the Allied powers. On December 12, the 
Greek Government, still in ignorance of the rea- 
son for the blockade, sent the Allied ministers a 
note in these terms : 

The Government, supposing that the measures of 
pression exercised by the Powers are a consequence of 
the events of December 1, hereby proposes that a mixed 
commission of enquiry be named, in conformance with 
the provisions of The Hague convention, to establish 

506 



ANATHEMA ! 

the responsibility for the encounters provoked between 
the sailors of the Allied fleet and the troops of the 
kingdom. In case this commission should declare that 
the royal government is responsible for the events in 
question, the Government is ready in advance to give 
the Powers any moral reparation whatsoever, not af- 
fecting its honor, which the mixed commission may fix. 

This proposal, so in keeping with the very in- 
ternational principles for which the powers ad- 
dressed are waging a world war, was not even 
accorded the recognition of a reply. To the 
constitutional government's protest that the 
Allies were actively aiding the revolutionists in 
the Greek islands and on Euboea "by terroriza- 
tion to propagate sedition among the islanders, 
despite their sentiments of loyalty and devotion 
to the legal government," no reply was vouch- 
safed. The only reply of any kind to the repre- 
sentations of King Constantine and his Govern- 
ment was an ultimatum, delivered December 14, 
and reading in its essential parts : 

The recent events in Athens have proved in an in- 
disputable way that neither the king nor the Hellenic 
Government exercises sufficient authority over the 
Hellenic army to keep it from constituting a menace 
to the peace and security of the Allied troops in Mace- 
donia. 

Under these circumstances the Allied governments 
607 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK TEOPLE 

are obliged, with a view to assuring their forces against 
an attack, to demand the immediate removal of the 
troops enumerated in the technical note attached. 
These removals must begin within 24 hours and be 
completed as quickly as possible. On the other hand, 
all movements of troops toward the north must imme- 
diately cease. 

In case the Hellenic Government should not accept 
these exigencies, the Allies will consider that such an 
attitude constitutes an act of hostility toward them. 

The undersigned ministers have received orders to 
quit Greece with the personnel of their legations if, at 
the expiration of 24 hours from the delivery of the pres- 
ent note, they have not received the pure and simple ac- 
ceptance of the royal government. 

The blockade of the Greek coasts will continue until 
the Hellenic Government shall have given full repara- 
tion for the last attack, made without provocation by 
the Greek troops on the Allied troops at Athens, and 
until sufficient guarantees for the future have been 
furnished. 

This astounding document, coolly declaring 
that the landing of an armed force upon neutral 
soil and an advance of that force with declared 
hostile intent upon the capital of a country at 
peace, furnished no provocation to resistance, is 
remarkable for many reasons. First it betrays 
the line that the British and French governments 
had decided to adopt toward the events of De- 
cember 1, namely, that King Constantine's 
meager force still under arms constituted a press- 

508 



ANATHEMA! 

ing danger to Sarrail's armies, and that what- 
ever measures of pression might be taken toward 
Greece were, consequently, of military necessity. 
Venizelos himself, on December 30,* placed the 
strength of the constitutional army of Greece at 
between 30,000 and 40,000 men, not bayonets. 
Sarrail at this time had over 250,000 men at 
Saloniki, protected from any possibility of a 
Greek attack by a range of mountains passable 
only at two readily guarded points. Pretense 
that the Allied Orient armies were in any danger 
was, therefore, either an amazing confession of 
the weakness of the Macedonian forces or a trans- 
parent diplomatic subterfuge. While the Rus- 
sian and Italian ministers had signed this note, 
the former, later and very reluctantly, withdrew 
from Athens aboard the Ahassieli, and the latter 
refused to leave the Greek capital at all, declar- 
ing that he was representing his government, not 
acting for a moving-picture film. 

"We either have diplomatic relations with the 
Greek Government," he said, "or we break them 
off. If we break off relations we leave Greece 
entirely. If we do not, there is no sense in 

1 See Appendix 6. 

509 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

negotiating over a distance of twenty miles." 
The Greek reply to the ultimatum was in full 
accord with the assurances King Constantine had 
already given the British and Russian ministers 
that he was ready to meet the Allies more than 
half-way in reaching a frank understanding. 
The fact that the ultimatum required a blind ac- 
ceptance of any reparation or guarantees the 
Allies might demand, left the very profound im- 
pression on the Hellenic people in general that 
the Austrian demands made of the Serbs in July, 
1914, were mere child's play compared to this 
rough-shod method of handling international 
affairs. There was an unquestionable opposition 
to King Constantine's acceptance of the terms of 
the ultimatum, at least until the nature of the 
"reparations and guarantees" were defined. A 
party of growing importance in Greece main- 
tained that Great Britain and France were try- 
ing to force Greece into war against the Allies 
and foresaw that sooner or later, either by the 
continuation of the blockade or by new demands 
impossible of fulfilment, the British and French 
chancelleries would succeed in this purpose. 
They therefore counseled the king to put him- 

510 



ANATHEMA! 

self at the head of the Greek people and for- 
tify himself in the fastnesses of Thessaly, where 
he could probably resist the attack of the Allies 
for years. The "Chronos," an Athenian daily 
of popular circulation, put the matter squarely : 

"War is no worse than starvation," it declared. 
"If the halter around our necks is tightened any 
further, let us have war and be done with this 
business." 

It is interesting in this connection to read the 
opening phrase of the Allied ultimatum that 
"neither the king nor the Hellenic Government 
exercises sufficient authority over the Hellenic 
army to keep it from constituting a menace to the 
peace and security of the Allied troops in Mace- 
donia." Undoubtedly the Allies had done all 
they could since June 21 to undermine King Con- 
stantine's authority over his army and to destroy 
the discipline of the Hellenic military and naval 
forces. But their statement, in this instance, 
was still premature. Had it not been for the 
iron authority of the commander-in-chief of the 
Greek forces on December 1, not a man of Ad- 
miral Dartige du Fournet's landing force would 
have returned to the Allied fleet, and the admiral 

511 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

himself would have been kept a prisoner. On 
the presentation of this latest ultimatum, had it 
not been for the immense influence in behalf of 
the Allies that King Constantine exercised and 
his complete moral ascendency over the Hellenic 
army and the Hellenic people, the result of the 
ultimatum would not have been further conces- 
sions to the Entente, but the creation of a new 
and exceedingly difficult Allied front in Greece. 
The British and French governments had Con- 
stantine I, not Venizelos or their diplomatists, to 
thank for peace in Greece instead of a new con- 
flict, which would have dragged out the European 
War to still greater length and, it may be, have 
made a German victory possible. 

The Greek Government's acceptance of the 
ultimatum, wholly the work of King Constantine, 
was as "pure and simple" as any one not try- 
ing merely to pick a quarrel could require. 

Desirous of giving once more a manifest proof of the 
sincere sentiments of friendship by which it has never 
ceased to be animated toward the Entente, the royal 
government accepts the demands contained therein. 

At the same time, however, Foreign Minister 
Zalacostas expressed the hope that: 

512 



ANATHEMA! 

The Powers will reconsider their declaration to con- 
tinue the blockade of the Greek coasts and islands, 
which strains the relations between the Allies and 
Greece and makes an impression upon public opinion, 
and will be persuaded that the best guarantee against 
any future misunderstandings lies in the firm and very 
sincere desire of the Greek Government and the Greek 
people to see confirmed as quickly as possible their 
excellent traditional relations toward the four Powers, 
and a close friendship based upon reciprocal confi- 
dence. 

While the Greek reply was on its way aboard 
the Latouche-Treville, Vice-admiral de Marilave, 
who had replaced Dartige du Fournet in com- 
mand of the Allied squadron, cleared his decks 
for bombardment and notified the population of 
the Pireeus "to close their doors and windows and 
seek refuge from every kind of projectile after 
4 o'clock p. M." 

"I deny," Admiral de Marilave added, "all re- 
sponsibility for the measures to which I may be 
compelled to have recourse." 

The population of Athens was not notified of 
this intention to bombard. No time was given 
in which to get the women, children, and other 
noncombatants out of the city. Only the ar- 
rival of Minister Zalocostas, with the Greek re- 
ply to the ultimatum, prevented the destruction 

513 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

of the ancient city, with its priceless monuments. 

The Hellenic government immediately set 
about the transfer of troops demanded by Gen- 
eral Sarrail. The examination of those arrested 
on charge of complicity in the abortive revolution 
of December 1 and 2 moved as rapidly as the 
courts could act. King Constantine urging the 
judges to dispose of the business with all possi- 
ble dispatch. In three weeks 268 persons were 
brought to court ; 91 were released within a fort- 
night; 118 were still to be examined; 57 were 
convicted on suspended sentence, and 2 were un- 
der indictment. Nevertheless, the Allied minis- 
ters were greatly exercised over this handling of 
the sedition cases. Doubtless, they felt a cer- 
tain sense of responsibility in the matter. Cer- 
tainly those Venizelists who had remained true 
to the cause of the Cretan in Athens left them 
no peace with tales of the brutal treatment of the 
Venizelist prisoners. As a result, not only the 
British and French but the American minister 
visited the jails, only to find the Venizelists, ac- 
cording to Mr. Droppers, "as comfortable as 
could be expected and humanly treated." 

In view not only of the loyalty with which the 
514. 



ANATHEMA! 

Allied demands were being executed, but of the 
rapidity and fairness with which the revolution- 
ists responsible for the bloodshed of December 2 
were being tried, the Hellenic Government was 
at loss to understand the continued activity of the 
Anglo-French secret police in spreading dis- 
affection throughout the Greek islands. The in- 
ternal complications created by these manceuvers 
were set forth in a formal note on December 18, 
inviting the Allies to assist the Hellenic Govern- 
ment in reaching a solution of these difficulties: 

The transfer of troops is being effected within the 
time allotted despite the difficulties made by the popu- 
lation. The judicial authorities handling the cases 
arising from the violent seditious movement of Decem- 
ber 1 are proceeding with circumspection, confining 
their action to haling before regular tribunals only 
those directly implicated in the sedition. Calm reigns 
in the capital; the provinces are untroubled by re- 
volt. 

The Hellenic Government has a right, therefore, to 
expect to see the relations with the Entente in the way 
of a definite reestablishment of reciprocal confidence. 
Nevertheless, the blockade of the coasts and islands 
of Greece continues, and an artificial extension of the 
revolutionary movement in the Cyclades islands, tol- 
erated by the Allied fleet aided by certain disturbing 
elements ^ tends, contrary to the intent of the agree- 
ment respecting the neutral zone erected in Macedonia, 

1 The Anglo-French secret police. 

515 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

to alienate new portions of Greek territory from the 
legitimate government. 

The Hellenic Government presumes that such action 
cannot be the intention of the Powers. It is per- 
suaded that the Powers do not purpose to proceed to 
hostile acts toward Greece after having occupied a 
large part of the country and accomplished an en- 
feebling of its military strength. . . . 

The present state of affairs begins to provoke the 
profoundest popular unrest. . . . Public opinion in the 
Allied countries continues to be misled by mendacious 
press reports emanating largely from Saloniki, while 
the official versions, the truth of which could easily be 
investigated by the Allied representatives in Athens, 
find no place in the Allied press. . . . 

If anarchy be encouraged in this country, the Gov- 
ernment can no longer regard with the same confidence 
its responsibilities in respect to the maintenance of 
that public tranquillity essential to security through- 
out the kingdom. The Government is firmly convinced 
that, as the Allies have frequently officially declared 
their disapproval of any subversive, anti-dynastic 
movement in Greece, and as it is no longer possible to 
question the distinction which is made by Greek opin- 
ion between Venizelism and sympathy with the Entente, 
a clearing up of the situation will not be difficult to 
accomplish. . 

Undoubtedly a clearing up of the situation 
would not have been difficult had the British and 
French ministers shown any disposition to clear 
it up. They did not. Count Bosdari worked 
night and day to effect a modus vivendi short of 
war between the Greeks and his country's allies, 

516 



ANATHEMA! 

but he had no help from France or England. 
The blockade was no longer pinching; it was 
throttling Greece. 

The Allies continued to put revolutionists 
ashore on the Greek islands and to protect them 
while they reduced the islanders to subjection, 
sometimes by methods of distinct brutality. 
The family of aged G. Daleggio, a Greek, 
sometime German consular agent at Syra, 
complained to the American legation that he 
had died as the result of ill treatment at the 
hands of the Venizelists occupying the island. 
The Holy Synod of Greece formally appealed 
to the pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and 
the Holy Synod of Russia against the encour- 
agement given by the Allies to 

a small political group which takes advantage of a 
foreign military occupation to terrorize the State and 
which, not hesitating before recruitment by force, has 
imprisoned and expelled priests and prelates who have 
remained faithful to their duty. . . .^ 

"The Greek church," the appeal continues, "would 
sin in the sight of God and betray its mission were it 

1 The prelates of higher rank arrested by the revolutionists and 
still held imprisoned, so far as I have been able to learn, are: 
The Archbishops of Agathangelos, Drama, Cosani and the Metro- 
politan of Crete; the Bishops of Grevena, Photios, Syra and 
Paronaxia. 

517 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

to remain silent in the presence of the grave danger 
in which the people find themselves of dying of starva- 
tion. This so-called 'pacific blockade' not only is ruin- 
ing our country materially and destroying every com- 
mercial, industrial and maritime activity, but it also 
threatens the inhuman and terrible destruction of a 
Christian population of men, women and children un- 
able to bear arms, which even armies and navies at war 
are bound to spare. 

With this declared attitude of the Greek 
Church,, in concert with the whole Hellenic peo- 
ple, it was no strange thing on Christmas day to 
see the venerable Archbishop of Athens, Mon- 
seignor Theoclitos, mount on a cairn of stones in 
the center of a vast multitude, and pronounce the 
anathema of the church of Greece upon "the 
traitor, Venizelos," and all his followers. From 
early morning, tens of thousands of men, women, 
and even children assembled at the parade- 
ground of Athens to repeat the age-old ceremony 
of anathema against Venizelos. The Govern- 
ment had forbidden the demonstration, but its 
prohibition deterred no one. Before three 
o'clock Christmas afternoon, fully 60,000 people 
had gathered at the appointed spot. 

As in the days of Alcibiades, each of those who 
came carried a stone which, cast into a pile, 

518 



H 
> 

3 tfl 




ANATHEMA! 

erected a monument to the national hatred of 
him against whom the anathema was pronomiced. 
Among the participants were not a few who had 
been followers of the Cretan until the revela- 
tions of the plot of December 1 ; there were dele- 
gates of Hellenes from the irridentist provinces 
of Asia Minor, who charged Venizelos with hav- 
ing, through his own ambition, "ruined the hope 
of realizing an united Hellenism." I saw one 
old woman, bent under a huge, rough rock 
brought from the stony land of her farm in 
Attica. As she cast her missile, she cried in a 
strident voice: 

"We made him premier; but he was not con- 
tent. He would make himself king. Anath- 
ema!" And she flung out her hand, the bony- 
fingers outstretched in sign of the curse she 
called down upon the head of the Cretan. 

The Archbishop of Athens voiced the feelings 
of the Greeks in few words, but telling : 

"Accursed be Elephtherios Venizelos, who has 
imprisoned priests, who has plotted against his 
king and his country!" 

Eight bishops, representing every district of 
old Greece, followed him in the same ceremony. 

521 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Subsequently, not a village, not a hamlet of old 
Greece did not repeat the anathema of Venizelos 
on its own account. For months, Venizelos had 
insisted upon elections. In a way these spon- 
taneous ceremonies were vastly more indicative 
than any elections could ever have been of the 
place to which the great Cretan had fallen in the 
esteem of his countrymen. 

A week later, the laborers, always previously 
the ardent supporters of Venizelos, registered 
their separate judgment of "a revolutionary 
movement conducted by a small number of trai- 
tors which is being extended within the islands 
by the use of the specter of famine," which they 
presented to the American minister, Mr. Drop- 
pers, praying the President of the United 
States to end the blockade. Over three hundred 
labor-unions signed the appeal in which it was 
charged that : 

The foodstuffs consigned to the food control com- 
mittee of the country are seized by the very Powers 
maintaining the blockade and turned over, in contempt 
of all human justice, to those who have fomented and 
directed the revolutionary movement, at Saloniki. 

On December 27 the hospitals of Athens were 
522 



ANATHEMA! 

forced to refuse further patients, as they were 
unable to feed them. The premier shewed me 
his daily budget of telegrams from all over the 
country, a ghastly record of privation, hunger, 
and death. The Government once more re- 
quested the Allied powers to state the terms com- 
pliance with which would induce the raising of 
the blockade. In reply, on December 31 Count 
Bosdari, in behalf of the Allied ministers still 
aboard the Ahassieh, out of sight of the famine 
stalking tlirough the land, presented the final ul- 
timatum of the Entente Powers. 

It was sweeping and complete. "Moral 
reparations," including a public salute to the flag 
of the Allied nations were required, for the Greek 
defeat of the Allied landing force on December 
1. The commander of the first army corps 
must be relieved of his command "unless the royal 
government can satisfy the Allied powers that 
this measure should be applied to another gen- 
eral officer upon whom the responsibility for the 
orders issued December 1 rests." As the king 
was plainly, albeit veiledly, indicated in this 
phrase, the Greeks keenly resented this imputa- 
tion. Moreover, all the Venizelists, implicated 

523 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

in the abortive plot of December 1 and 2 were to 
be liberated immediately, without due process of 
law, and the property belonging to Venizelists 
destroyed during the two days was to be recom- 
pensed at the national expense. There was no 
mention of recompense for property destroyed 
by the Allied bombardment of Athens. 

"The Powers guarantors inform the Hellenic Gov- 
ernment that they reserve full liberty of action," the 
ultimatum continued, "in case the government of His 
Majesty the King of the Hellenes gives new cause of 
complaint." 

This employment, for the first time, of the full, 
formal title of King Constantine indicated only 
too clearly that it was in respect to him, not his 
government, that these reservations were made. 
Neither did that gratuitous fling at the Greek 
sovereign render the ultimatum more acceptable 
to the Hellenic people. Under the head of 
guarantees, the document read: 

The Greek forces in continental Greece and Euboea 
and generally stationed outside the Peloponnessus 
must be reduced to the number of men strictly neces- 
sary to the maintenance of order and police protec- 
tion. All armament and munitions in excess of that 
corresponding to this effective, must be transported to 
the Peloponnessus; likewise all the machine guns and 

5M 



ANATHEMA! 

artillery of the Greek army with their ammunition, so 
that once the transfer has taken place there will re- 
main outside the Peloponnessus neither cannon, ma- 
chine guns nor the material of mobilization. . . . The 
military situation thus established will be maintained 
so long as the Allies judge necessary [presumably even 
after the end of the European war] under the sur- 
veillance of special delegates they shall select and ac- 
credit for this purpose to the Greek authorities. 

Every meeting and assemblage of reservists in Greece 
north of the Isthmus of Corinth, must he forbidden. 

The demand for the release of the Venizehsts 
without due process of law abdicated, far more 
clearly than ever Austria-Hungary had proposed 
in the case of Serbia, all authority of the Greek 
courts. Recalling that the reservists of Greece 
are merely the male population capable of bear- 
ing arms, the last requirement qouted above, ab- 
dicated the constitutional right of assembly in 
Greece as effectually as if the entire country had 
been put under foreign martial law. 



525 



CHAPTER XXVII 

THE UNENDING BLOCKADE 

The effect of the demands of the AlHed ulti- 
matum on the Greek people was stupefying. 
That night hundreds paraded the streets crying: 
"Long live starvation! Down with the ultima- 
tum!" As they marched, they carried pitiful, 
gaudy portraits of King Constantine, as if they 
were sacred icons or some sort of talismans 
against hunger. There could be no doubt that 
rather than accede to this final blow at their in- 
dependence and sovereignty they were to the last 
man ready to fight, even against four great world 
powers. The situation created not so much, per- 
haps, by the demands as by the tone of the ulti- 
matum, by the long, inflexible pressure of the 
blockade, and, above all, by the open aid the 
Alhes had given and were still giving the revolu- 
tionaries, was so menacing that I sought the king 
at once to learn his purpose. I found him at 
Prince Nicholas's, consulting with his brother, as 

526 



THE UNENDING BLOCKADE 

he often did before reaching a momentous de- 
cision. He seemed to have aged greatly in the 
past few weeks, to have aged years since I had 
seen him first in the summer of 1915. Yet he 
stiU kept that smiling cool-headedness which he 
had never lost, even in his moments of wrath, 
since the beginning of his country's trials. 

He reviewed in detail the situation of Greece 
since the war first came to the near East, under- 
hning step by step the immense, though unap- 
preciated, concessions Greece had made to the 
Alhes. His complaint was not so much of the 
blockade or even of the new Allied demands, as 
of what he termed "the determination of the 
British and French neither to understand the 
real state of affairs in Greece nor to permit any 
knowledge of it to reach the world at large." He 
gave me very plainly to understand that the crux 
of the whole situation lay in the Allies' espousal 
of the revolutionary movement in Greece, and 
their more or less frank efforts to promote civil 
war in his country. He ridiculed the idea that 
he had ever dreamed of attacking Sarrail's flank. 

"The French and the British do not seem to 
think I am much of a soldier," he said, laugh- 

527 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

ingly. "But, believe me, I am more of a soldier 
than to attempt anything so mad as that, even 
if I wanted to, which I do not." 

Recalling his lengthy message of November 27 
to Premier Briand, he referred once more to his 
four offers to join the Allies in the war, all of 
which had been rejected, and asked with some 
asperity why the truth about these offers was 
always so carefully suppressed by the Alhed 
governments, while unfounded reports of his al- 
leged pro-Germanism were widely exploited in 
the British and French press. I asked him 
point-blank upon what Admiral Dartige du 
Fournet could possibly have based his report that 
the Greeks treacherously attacked him on Decem- 
ber 1. 

"You were there yourself," he replied. 
"Probably you saw more than any one else of 
the whole affair. Did you see anything that 
would substantiate such a claim?" 

I was forced to admit that, on the contrary, I 
had seen the Greeks, in position to annihilate a 
good part of the admiral's force, withholding 
their fire, under orders. 

"The Greeks merely defended their own," the 
528 



THE UNENDING BLOCKADE 

monarch stated, "as any Englishman or French- 
man would have done in similar circmnstances. 
No Greek either then or even now has any de- 
sire to fight the Allies. Neither a continuation 
of the blockade nor further coercive measures on 
the part of the Entente can induce me ever to de- 
clare war on France or England, and don't for- 
get that under the Greek constitution I am the 
only man in Greece who can declare war. The 
Hellenic people to-day do not want war with 
anybody. They are ready to tighten their belts 
and starve, if need be, until the truth of the situa- 
tion in Greece can penetrate to the statesmen 
and the people of England and France." 

Again through the efforts of King Constantine 
the terms of this last ultimatimi were accepted in 
full. The Government immediately took charge 
of the distribution of the small remaining stock 
of food-stuffs in Greece. Every grown person 
was allowed six and one half ounces of bread 
per day. King Constantine, as head of a family 
of six grown persons and two infants, drew his 
bread-card like any other citizen of Athens. At 
the same time, on January 5, 1917, Premier Lam- 
bros sent to the Allied conference that had been 

529 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

called in Rome a full statement of the situation 
in Greece, urging an early raising of the block- 
ade, and guarantees from the Allies that the 
revolution in Greece would not be further ex- 
tended through their influence. As a conse- 
quence of this able summary, on January 8 the 
Allied diplomatists presented a supplementary 
note, insisting upon a more formal acceptance 
of their last ultimatum than that they had al- 
ready received, and took occasion at the same 
time to offer certain guarantees against any fur- 
ther encroachments of the revolutionists than 
those they had already sponsored : 

The Allied Powers agree not to permit the with- 
drawal of the Greek troops to the Peloponnessus to be 
seized by the partisans of the provisional government 
as an opportunity to occupy by land or sea any part 
whatsoever of Greek territory thus deprived of all 
means of resistance. The Allied Powers likewise agree 
not to permit the authorities of the provisional gov- 
ernment to establish themselves in any part of the ter- 
ritory of Greece now actually in possession of the 
royal government which they [the Allies] may be 
brought themselves to occupy temporarily for military 
reasons. 

This was perfectly satisfactory to the Hellenic 
Government. Had it been as loyally executed 
as the engagements of Greece toward the Allies, 

530 



THE UNENDING BLOCKADE 

there would have been no further difficulties be- 
tween Greece and the Entente. After an all- 
night session of the crown council, in which King 
Constantine's conciliatory advice once more pre- 
vailed, Foreign Minister Zalocostas drew up the 
written and categorical acceptance of every de- 
mand contained in the Allied ultimatum of De- 
cember 31, adding, however, a further plea in fa- 
vor of lifting the blockade : 

The government believes it its duty again to draw 
the attention of the Allied governments to the salutory 
influence upon the public opinion of the country, exas- 
perated to the highest degree, that the cessation of a 
measure applied to a friendly and neutral country would 
have. 

The Hellenic Government's appeal was fruit- 
less. Even the Venizelist occupation of the loyal 
Greek islands did not cease. The blockade con- 
tinued, absolute since November 30, and a prac- 
tical prohibition of importation of the food-stuffs 
necessary to life, since September 30. The 
death-rate increased daily. In January, twenty- 
five dead were reported and certified to by phy- 
sicians as due to starvation ; in February, twenty- 
six ; in March, forty-nine ; in the first ten days of 
April, ten. Almost all were women or children. 

531 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Most deaths were not reported at all, especially 
in out-of-the-way places. It is known, however, 
that by March, 1917, there had been four deaths 
from starvation on the island of Ithaca, one on 
St. Maura, five at Preveza, three at Messina, two 
on Cephalonia, and one on Euboea. Taken as 
mere measures for the rest of Greece, these must 
indicate hundreds of deaths. 

Worst of all, perhaps, was the suffering of the 
poorer classes, the dock laborers, factory hands, 
and unskilled workmen of all kinds, thrown out 
of employment by the shutting down of all busi- 
ness due to the lack of raw material, normally 
brought by sea, of coal, and of money to pay 
them. It was of little moment to them that the 
price of the necessities of life had leaped beyond 
the reach even of the well to do, since the poor 
had no money at all. First the bread was made 
of two thirds bran ; then it was scarcely made at 
all. In the country districts the peasants lived 
upon roots and herbs, like animals ; in the city a 
handful of olives kept body and soul together. 

But what wounded the Hellenic people more 
than hunger was the continued attacks upon 
them and upon their king in the Allied press. 

532 



THE UNENDING BLOCKADE 

The Venizelist press-bureau at Saloniki, with the 
cables free of censorship, while those of Athens 
were barred to all but favored news, filled the 
world with falsehood, with absurd charges, and 
ridiculous assertions. King Constantine was 
said to receive part of his salary from the 
French, British, and Russian governments, and 
was accused of base ingratitude because he did 
not therefore plunge his country into war. He 
was charged with maintaining a secret wireless 
station, in constant communication with Berlin, 
on Queen Olga's summer villa at Tatoy. State- 
ments he had never dreamed of making were put 
in his mouth and published broadcast. He was 
alleged to have taken his orders on the best way 
to maintain his throne from his brother-in-law, 
the Emperor of Germany. Again and again the 
story of his "treacherous ambush" of the Allied 
forces on December 1 was repeated in the British 
and French press. The old tale that he had a 
secret agi'eement with Germany to the prejudice 
of the Allies was revived and reprinted with em- 
bellishments. There was not, and is not, one 
single word of truth in any of these grotesque 
stories. 

533 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

The constant repetition of these false state- 
ments in London, Paris, and the United States 
has done even more to embitter the Hellenic peo- 
ple than the ordeal of starvation inflicted upon 
them by the Allied powers. Starvation only suc- 
ceeded in drawing them closer to their soldier- 
sovereign, the democratic monarch so truly of 
them, so very really a Greek of the Greeks, re- 
flecting their will, working out in the most inti- 
mate touch with them the destiny they have con- 
ceived and borne untarnished in their souls 
through four hundred centuries. Therefore 
when the Venizelist propaganda at last un- 
masked its underlying purpose and counseled 
the Allies to dethrone King Constantine, in 
violation of their repeated promises not to dis- 
turb the constitutional government of Greece, the 
Greeks made desperate efforts to get the truth 
of their situation to the world. It was use- 
less. Their denials of the fantastic imaginings 
of the Venizelist press-bureau were not published 
even when they could get them by the Allied 
censors. 

On January 14, New Year's Day by the Greek 
calendar, I had my farewell audience of the big, 

534 



THE UNENDING BLOCKADE 

bluff man his countrymen call their "koum- 
haros" A band of Greeks in their white fus- 
tanelles had come to the palace, as is the cus- 
tom on New Year's day, to chant choruses in 
praise of king and country. When the cere- 
mony was over, we walked together into his 
study, under the window of which one of the 
shells from the Allied fleet had fallen during the 
bombardment of the city on December 1. 

"I am sorry you are leaving us," King Con- 
stantine said abruptly. "I do not believe that 
there is a man or woman in Greece who does not 
feel very profoundly what a great thing it has 
been for us during this most critical period in our 
national history to have an American corre- 
spondent here to tell the world with absolute im- 
partiality the truth of what is taking place. 
They tell me, however, that a good many of your 
telegrams to the United States never get through 
the censors." The King laughed a little rue- 
fully. "You have nothing on me," he added. 
"Neither do mine. 

"I am afraid there is no way," he went on. 
"We might as well be in a dungeon here for all 
the touch we have with the rest of the world. 

535 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

The most ridiculous, the most outrageous non- 
sense about what is happening in Greece is pub- 
lished daily in the European press, presumably 
written by journalists who are not even on the 
spot to see the facts for themselves. And when 
my Government sends official denials of them, 
the European newspapers will not even publish 
the denials. Take this letter, for example. As 
you see, it is from ex-Mayor Bennakis, who was 
arrested on December 2 during the attempted 
Venizelist revolution. A French newspaper 
publishes a story that Bennakis was so badly mis- 
treated that his right arm had to be amputated, 
and he was on the point of death. Far from 
having his arm amputated, he writes me a letter 
with it, as you see, expressing his gratitude for 
the kindness with which he has been treated, and 
assuring me that he is my 'most loyal and de- 
voted subject.' Your minister, Mr. Droppers, 
personally investigated the treatment of those 
who were imprisoned on the charge of sedition as 
a result of the abortive revolution of December 
1 and 2, and told me himself that he found them 
very comfortable. My Government therefore 
telegraphed the French press a denial of the Ben- 

536 



THE UNENDING BLOCKADE 

nakis story as well as of any number of similar 
fabrications; but I have never heard of any of 
the denials being published. 

"After all, all that we ask is fair play. But it 
seems almost hopeless to try to get the truth out 
of Greece to the rest of the world in the present 
circumstances. We have been sorely tried these 
last two years and we don't pretend we have al- 
ways been angels under the constant irritation of 
the ever-increasing Allied control of every lit- 
tle thing in our private life — letters, telegrams, 
police, everything. Why, do you know that my 
sister-in-law. Princess Alice of Battenberg, was 
permitted to receive a telegram of Christmas 
greetings from her mother in England only by 
courtesy of the British legation here! 

"Moreover, by taking an active hand in our 
own internal politics, England and France espe- 
cially have succeeded in alienating an admira- 
tion, a sympathy, and a devotion toward them 
on the part of the Greek people that at the be- 
ginning of the war was virtually an unanimous 
tradition. I am a soldier myself, and I know 
nothing about politics, but it seems to me that 
when you start with almost the whole of a coun- 

537 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

try passionately in your favor and end with it 
almost unanimously against you, you have n't 
succeeded very well. And I quite understand 
how those responsible for such a result seek to 
excuse themselves by exaggerating the difficul- 
ties they have had to contend with in Greece — 
by talking about Greek treachery and the im- 
mense, sinister organization of German propa- 
ganda that has foiled them at every turn, and so 
on. The only trouble with that is that they make 
us pay for the errors of their policy. The people 
of Greece are paying for them now in suffering 
and death from exposure and hunger, while 
France and England starve us out because they 
have made the mistake of assuming that their 
man, Venizelos, could deliver the Greek army 
and the Greek people to the Entente powers 
whenever they wanted to use Greece for their 
advantage, regardless of the interests of Greece 
as an independent nation. 

"There are just two things about our desper- 
ate struggle to save ourselves from destruction 
that I am going to ask you to try to make clear 
to the people of America. The rest will have to 
come out some day. All the blockades and cen- 

538 



THE UNENDING BLOCKADE 

sorships in the world cannot keep the truth down 
forever. Understand, I am not presuming to sit 
in judgment on the Entente powers. I appreci- 
ate that they have got other things to think about 
besides Greece. What I say is meant to help 
them do justice to themselves and to us, a small 
nation. 

"The first point is this : we have two problems 
on our hands here in Greece, an internal one and 
an external one. The Entente powers have 
made the fundamental mistake of considering 
them both as one. They said to themselves: 
'Venizelos is the strongest man in Greece, and 
he is heart and soul with us. He can deliver the 
Greeks whenever he wants to. Let us back 
Venizelos, therefore, and when we need the Greek 
army, he will turn it over to us.' 

"Well, they were wrong, as I think you have 
seen for yourself since you have been here. 
Venizelos was perhaps the strongest man in 
Greece, as they thought ; but the moment he tried 
to turn over the Greek army to the Entente, as 
if we were a lot of mercenaries, he became the 
weakest man in Greece and the most despised. 
For in Greece no man delivers the Greeks. 

539 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

They decide their own destinies as a free people, 
and England, France, and Russia put together 
cannot change them, either by force of arms or 
by starvation. And they have tried both. As 
for Venizelos himself, you had a man once in 
your country, a very great man, who had even 
been Vice-president of the United States, who 
planned to split the country in two and set him- 
self up as ruler in the part he separated from 
the rest." 

"Your Majesty means Aaron Burr?" I asked. 

"Precisely. But he only plotted to do a thing 
which he never accomplished. Venizelos, with 
the assistance of the Allied powers, — and he 
never could have done it without them, — ^lias suc- 
ceeded for the time being in the same kind of 
seditious enterprise. You called Aaron Burr a 
traitor. Well, that 's what the Greek people 
call Venizelos. 

"The impression has been spread broadcast 
that Venizelos stands in Greece for liberalism, 
and his opponents for absolutism, for militarism. 
It is just the other way round. Venizelos stands 
for whatever suits his own personal book ; his idea 
of government is an absolute dictatorship, a sort 

540 



THE UNENDING BLOCKADE 

of Mexican government, I take it. When he 
was premier he broke every man who dared to 
disagree with him in his own party. He never 
sought to express the will of the people; he im- 
posed his will on the people. The Greek people 
will not stand that. They demand a constitu- 
tional government in which there is room for two 
parties, liberals and conservatives, each with a 
definite program, as in the United States or Eng- 
land or any other civilized country; not a per- 
sonal government, where the only party division 
is into Venizelists and anti-Venizelists. 

"That is one thing I wanted to stay. The 
other is about the effect of the so-called German 
propaganda in Greece. The Entente powers 
seem to have adopted the attitude that every- 
body who is not willing to fight on their side must 
be a pro-German. Nothing could be falser in 
respect to Greece. The present resentment 
against the Alhes in Greece — and there is a good 
deal of it, especially since the blockade — is due 
to the Allies themselves, not to any German 
propaganda. The proof of it is that when the 
so-called German propaganda was at its height 
there was little or no hostility in Grece toward 

541 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

the Allies. It has only been since the diplomatic 
representatives of all the Central empires, and 
everybody else whom the Anglo-French secret 
police indicated as inimical to the Entente, have 
been expelled from Greece, and any German 
propaganda rendered virtually impossible, that 
there has grown up any popular feeling against 
the Entente. 

"Part of this is due to the Entente's identifica- 
tion of their greater cause with the personal am- 
bitions of Venizelos; but a great deal has also 
been due to the very unfortunate handling of 
the Allied control in Greece. When you write 
a personal letter of no possible international sig- 
nificance to a friend or relative in Athens, and 
post it in Athens, and it is held a week, opened, 
and half its contents blacked out, -it makes you 
pretty cross, not because it is unspeakable tyr- 
anny in a free country at peace with all the 
world, but because it is so silly. For, after all, 
if you want to plot with a man living in the same 
town, you don't write him a letter; you put on 
your hat and go to see him. Half the people in 
Greece have been continually exasperated by just 
this sort of unintelligent control that has irri- 

542 



THE UNENDING BLOCKADE 

tated them beyond any telling. But to say that 
they are pro-German because they dislike hav- 
ing their private letters opened, or their homes 
entered without any legal authority whatsoever, 
is childish. It is a vicious circle. The Entente 
takes exceptionally severe measures because they 
allege the Greeks are pro-German; the Greeks 
very naturally resent the measures thus taken, as 
would the Americans or anybody else. The En- 
tente then turns around and says: 'You see, 
that proves that the Greeks are pro-German, as 
we suspected !' 

"The fact of the matter is that there is less 
pro-German feeling in Greece than in the United 
States, Holland, or any of the Scandinavian 
countries. And there is far less anti-Entente 
propaganda in Greece even now than there is 
anti-Hellenic propaganda in England, France, 
and Russia. The whole feeling of the Greek 
people toward the Entente powers to-day is one 
of sorrow and disillusionment. They had heard 
so much of this war 'for the defense of little na- 
tions' that it has been a very great shock to them 
to be treated, as they feel, very badly, even 
cruelly, for no reason and to nobody's profit. 

643 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

And more than anything else, after all the Greek 
Government and Greek people have done to help 
the Entente powers since the very outbreak of 
the war, they deeply resent being called pro-Ger- 
man because they have not been willing to see 
their own country destroyed, as Serbia, Mon- 
tenegro, and Rumania have been destroyed. 

"As I have tried repeatedly to point out to 
the Entente representatives, there can be only 
one certain guarantee of the safety of the Allied 
forces in the Balkans as far as the Greeks are 
concerned — that is mutual confidence. The as- 
sumption that every Greek is an enemy and not 
to be trusted is merely a standing challenge to 
every hothead to attempt something irreparable 
— irreparable for Greece as well as for the En- 
tente. 

"I have done everything I could to dissipate the 
mistrust of the powers; I have given every pos- 
sible assurance and guarantee. Many of the 
military measures that have been demanded with 
such circumstance as measures of security I my- 
self suggested with a view to tranquilizing the 
Allies, and I myself voluntarily offered to ex- 



THE UNENDING BLOCKADE 

ecute. My army, which any soldier knows could 
never conceivably have constituted a danger to 
the Allied forces in Macedonia, has been virtually 
put in j ail in the Peloponnesus. My people have 
been disarmed, and are to-day powerless even 
against revolution ; and they know from bitter 
experience that revolution is a possibility so long 
as the Entente powers continue to finance the 
openly declared revolutionary party under Ven- 
izelos. There is not enough food left in Greece 
to last a fortnight. Not the Belgians themselves 
under German rule have been rendered more 
helpless than are we in Greece to-day. 

"Is n't it, therefore, time cahnly to look at con- 
ditions in Greece as they are, to give over a policy 
dictated by panic, and to display a little of that 
high quality of faith which alone is the founda- 
tion of friendship?" 

As I was leaving, I asked the Greek sovereign 
one more question. 

"What will you do, sir, if they try to dethrone 
you?" 

"I was born here," King Constantine replied. 
"I am a citizen of Athens. Do you know what 

545 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 
Athens is called in Greek? ahmos A©HNAmN_ 
the City of Athenians. Well, I, too, am one of 
those Athenians. No one can take that from 
me." 



546 



EPILOGUE 

When I returned to New York, one Sunday 
I attended a meeting of Greeks in the Terrace 
Garden. A Greek who had known me in Athens 
dragged me from an obscure corner of the press- 
box, and before I knew it, Mr. Solon Vlastos, the 
chairman, had announced that a man who had 
come from Greece since the blockade would 
speak. 

I said a few words to the audience in Greek, 
and they cheered themselves hoarse. As I was 
leaving the stage. Major Sioris mounted the 
steps and, taking my hand, kissed it. Turning 
to the audience he cried : 

"I kiss the hand that has clasped that of the 
koumharos!" 

In the twinkling of an eye an hundred veterans 
of two wars pressed about me, to my intense em- 
barrassment, to kiss my hand, their brown faces 
wet with tears. 

Many people with whom I have talked since 
my return have said : 

647 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

"After all, suppose the Greeks have had a raw 
deal, what of it? The war is a big thing. The 
Allies are right on the big lines. Greece is only 
a little corner of the whole. Let it go !" 

I am afraid I cannot quite see that. The Al- 
lies are right on the big lines, and because they 
are right, theirs is the victory; but only in so 
much as they are right. And somehow I believe 
that a wrong brings its own punishment. I be- 
lieve that if the Allies had not been untrue to 
Serbia and unjust to Greece, their and our vic- 
tory would have come sooner. For myself, I 
want to see the Allies right in all things great 
and small. Two wrongs do not make a right. 
Because the Germans were cruel to the Belgians 
does not justify the British and French in being 
harsh, to use no stronger term, with the Greeks. 

The Greeks are a fine and loyal people. Had 
the Allies treated them as a fine and loyal people, 
I am certain they would have been fighting now 
beside the French, whom they have always loved, 
and whom they love even yet. 



548 



APPENDICES 



APPENDIX 1 

VENIZELOS'S MEMORANDA TO KING 
CONSTANTINE 

January 11, 1915. 
Sire: 

I have already had the honor of submitting to Your 
Majesty the substance of a communication made me by the 
British minister at the order of Sir Edward Grey. By this 
communication Greece finds herself once more confronted 
with one of the most critical events of her national his- 
tory. Until to-day our policy has consisted in the con- 
serving of our neutrality, at least in so far as our engage- 
ment toward Serbia has not demanded our leaving it. But 
to-day we are called upon to take part in the war — no 
longer merely to discharge a moral duty, but in exchange 
for compensations which, realized, will constitute a great 
and powerful Greece such as even the most optimistic could 
not have imagined a few years ago. 

To succeed in obtaining these great compensations, we 
shall undoubtedly have to confront great dangers. But 
after having studied the question deeply and at length, I 
have arrived at the conclusion that we ought to face these 
dangers. We should confront them principally because 
even in not taking part in the war, and in endeavoring to 
maintain our neutrality until the end of the war, we shall 
still be exposed to great risks. 

If to-day we permit Serbia to be crushed by the new 
Austro-German invasion, will this invasion stop at our 
Macedonian frontiers or will it not naturally be attracted 
towards Saloniki? But even in supposing that this danger 
be averted, and admitting that Austria, content with the 
military crushing of Serbia, will not wish to establish her- 
self in Macedonia, yet can we doubt that Bulgaria, invited 
by Austria, will not come forward to occupy Serbian Mace- 

551 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

donia? We should then come to the aid of Serbia if we 
do not wish to dishonor our engagements as an ally. But 
if, still indiiFerent to our own moral ruin, we remain 
passive we should thus be tolerating the breaking up of the 
equilibrium of the Balkans to the advantage of Bulgaria 
who, thus fortified, might either immediately or after some 
time, attack us while we were deprived of any ally and 
friend. 

If, on the contrary, we had previously hastened to the 
succor of Serbia as to the accomplishment of an impera- 
tive duty, we should have been acting under circumstances 
much more unfavorable than if we went to her aid to-day. 
Because Serbia would already be crushed, and consequently 
our aid would be entirely useless, or at least not sufficientlj'^ 
useful; whereas, on the other hand, in refusing to-day the 
overtures of the Entente Powers, we should not receive, 
even in case of victory, any positive compensation assured 
for the aid we might have lent. 

But it is necessary to examine the conditions under which 
we should have to participate in the struggle. Above all 
we ought to try to secure the cooperation not only of Ru- 
mania but of Bulgaria. If such a cooperation could be ob- 
tained and all the Christian states of the Balkans might 
make an alliance, not only would all danger of a local de- 
feat be averted, but their participation would constitute an 
important reinforcement in the struggle undertaken by the 
Entente Powers; it would not even be exaggerated to say 
that this participation would exercise a considerable influ- 
ence in favor of the domination of these Powers. 

To achieve the successful issue of this plan I believe that 
important concessions must be made to Bulgaria. Up to 
this time we have not only refused to discuss this subject, 
but we have declared that we would oppose any important 
concessions being made to her by Serbia — concessions 
which might upset the equilibrium of the Balkans, estab- 
lished by the treaty of Bucharest. Our policy in this 
connection was always well defined up to the present time. 
But to-day things have obviously changed: at the moment 
when there rises before us the realization of our national 
aspirations in Asia Minor, we might make some sacrifice in 

552 



APPENDICES 

the Balkans in order to assure the success of so great a 
policy. 

We ought, above all, to withdraw our objections to con- 
cessions being made by Serbia to Bulgaria, even if these 
concessions extend to the right bank of the Vardar. But 
if these are not sufficient to attract Bulgaria to cooperate 
with her ancient allies, or at least to induce her to guard 
a benevolent neutrality, I should not hesitate — painful as 
the act would be— to advise the sacrifice of Cavalla to save 
Hellenism in Turkey and to assure the creation of a really 
great Greece comprising nearly all the countries where 
Hellenism has exercised her power during her long his- 
tory through the centuries. This sacrifice would not be 
made as the price of the neutrality of Bulgaria, but as a 
compensation for her participation in the war with the 
other Allies. 

If my judgment were accepted, it would be necessary, by 
intervention of the Entente Powers, to have the guarantee 
that Bulgaria would pledge herself to buy up the prop- 
erty of all inhabitants who wish to emigrate to Greece 
from the section which would be ceded to her. At the 
same time a commission would make it possible for the 
Greek population within the limits of Bulgaria to be ex- 
changed against the Bulgarian population within the Greek 
boundaries; the property of these populations to be bought 
up by the respective states. This exchange and the pur- 
chase of the property would be made by commissions com- 
posed of five members, of whom England, France, Russia, 
Greece and Bulgaria should each name one; the execution 
of all these conditions to precede our actual surrender of 
Cavalla. 

An ethnological segregation could thus definitely be ac- 
complished and the idea of a Balkan confederation real- 
ized; in any case, an alliance of these states with mutual 
guarantees could be concluded which would permit them to 
devote themselves to the working out of their economic and 
other developments without being occupied almost ex- 
clusively from the beginning by the necessity of strength- 
ening themselves in a military way. At the same time, 
as partial compensation for this concession, we should 

553 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

demand, in the event that Bulgaria should extend her 
territory beyond the Vardar, that the Doiran-Ghevgheli 
sector ^ be conceded to us in order to acquire, opposed to Bul- 
garia, a solid northern frontier — deprived as we should be 
of the excellent frontier which separates us from her on the 
east. 

Unfortunately, owing to the Bulgarian greed, it is not at 
all certain that these concessions — considerable as they are 
— will satisfy Bulgaria and secure her cooperation. But 
at least the aid of Rumania should be assured; without her, 
our entrance into the struggle becomes too perilous. 

It is unnecessary to add that we should ask of the Triple 
Entente a promise of the necessary funds to meet the ex- 
penses of the war, and to facilitate the purchase, at her 
markets, of the required military equipment. 

My belief that we should accept the invitation given us 
to take part in the war is founded equally upon other con- 
siderations. Certainly in remaining impassive spectators 
of the struggle, we do not run merely the dangers I have 
"just enumerated which the eventual crushing of Serbia would 
create for us. Even if the plan of a new attack on 
Serbia were abandoned, Austria and Germany, returning 
to the principal theaters of war, — Poland and Flanders — 
and emerging from them victorious, once victorious, would 
be able to impose precisely the changes in the Balkans I 
have just enumerated as being the possible consequences of 
the crushing of Serbia. Aside from this, the fact of their 
victory would carry with it a fatal blow to the independ- 
ence of all little nations, without taking into considera- 
tion the immediate loss we should bear in the forfeiture 
of the islands. And, finally, for this reason also: that if 
the war should not end by a definite victory of one side 
over the other, but by a return to the order existing before 
the war, the extermination of Hellenism in Turkey would 
come swiftly and inevitably. 

Turkey, emerging intact from a war which she has dared 
make on three great Powers, and emboldened by a feeling 
of security which her alliance with Germany would give 

iThis sector is part of the territory of Greece's ally, Serbia. 

554 



APPENDICES 

her — an alliance which obviously' would be maintained in 
the future, as it serves the ends of Germany — would com- 
plete systematically and without delay the work of the ex- 
termination of Hellenism in Turkey, hunting down, en 
masse and without restraint, these populations whose prop- 
erty she would confiscate. 

In this task she would encounter no opposition from 
Germany; on the contrary, she would be encouraged by 
Germany in order that Asia jNIinor, which Germany covets 
for the future, may be rid of a claimant. The expulsion 
of thousands of Greeks living in Turkey would not only 
ruin them, but it would risk also involving all Greece in 
an economic catastrophe. 

For all these reasons I conclude that, under the above 
conditions, our participation in the war is absolutely neces- 
sary. This participation in the war, as I said in the be- 
ginning, holds also grave dangers. 

Opposed to the dangers to which we should be exposed 
in taking part in the war, there would predominate Hope 
— hope, founded, as I trust, on saving a great part of 
Hellenism in Turkey and of creating a great and powerful 
Greece. And even in the event that we fail, we should 
have an untroubled conscience in having fought to liberate 
our fellow countrymen who are still in bondage and who 
are exposed to the gravest dangers; in having fought also 
for the larger interests of humanity and the independence 
of small nations, which would be fatally imperiled by 
Germano-Turkish domination. And finally, even if we 
fail, we should keep the esteem and the friendship of strong 
nations, of those very nations who made Greece and who 
have, so many times since, aided and sustained her. 
Whereas our refusal to discharge our obligations of alli- 
ance with Serbia would not only destroy our moral exist- 
ence as a nation and expose us to the dangers cited above, 
but such a refusal would leave us without friends and 
without credit in the future. Under such conditions our 
national development would become extremely perilous. 

I am Your Majesty's most obedient subject, 

El. Venizelos. 

555 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

January 17, 1915. 
Sire : 

Your Majesty has already noted the answer of the Ru- 
manian Government to our proposition concerning Serbia. 
This answer means, I take it, that Rumania will refuse us 
all military cooperation if Bulgaria does not participate. 
Even admitting that she is satisfied with an official declara- 
tion of neutrality on the part of Bulgaria in event of 
Greco-Rumanian cooperation with Serbia, it is improbable 
that a declaration of this kind can be obtained from Bul- 
garia. Moreover, the general staiF itself does not seem 
to find an absolute guarantee of security in the Greco- 
Serbo-Rumanian cooperation so long as Bulgaria holds her- 
self aloof, even after a declaration of neutrality, in the 
evident intention of violating this neutrality so soon as she 
finds it to her interest to do so. 

This being the state of things, it is time, I think, to face 
resolutely the problem of the sacrifices necessary to obtain, 
if possible, a pan-Balkan alliance for a common participa- 
tion in the war. An united action of the Balkan states 
would not only assure them, in any event, a local supremacy 
in the northern theater of war, but it would constitute also 
a considerable aid to the Powers of the Triple Entente — 
an aid which would suffice to turn the balance definitely in 
their favor in the terrible struggle which is taking place.^ 

The ceding of Cavalla is certainly a very painful sacri- 
fice and my whole being suiFers profoundly in counseling it. 
But I do not hesitate to propose it when I look upon the 
national compensations which will he assured to us by this 
sacrifice. I have the conviction that the * concessions in 
Asia Minor, concerning which Sir Edward Grey has made 
overtures, may, especially if we impose certain sacrifices re- 

^>i These proposals were made before Italy's entry into the 
European conflict. Yet even the addition of Italy to the Allies 
aid not "turn the balance definitely in their favor." It is doubt- 
ful if the creation of a Balkan block at this time would have 
laccomplished as much as did Italy's entry, and certain that the 
possibility of friction between the Balkan States would have 
jproved a constant source of weakness. As King Constantine 
put it: "Venizelos is a visionary. He lacks practical sense." 

556 



APPENDICES 

garding Bulgaria upon ourselves, take on such dimensions 
that a Greece equally large and certainly no less rich will 
be added to the Greece that has been doubled by two vic- 
torious wars. 

I believe that if we ask for the part of Asia Minor 
which, situated to the west of a line starting from Cape 
Phineka in the south, should follow the mountains of Al- 
Dag, Ristet-Dag, Carli-Dag, Anamas-Dag to reach Sultan- 
Dag, and which from there would end at Kaz-Dag in the 
gulf of Adramit (in case we are not given an outlet on the 
Sea of Marmora) there might be considerable probability 
of our request being accepted. The extent of this terri- 
tory exceeds 125,000 square kilometers; thus it has the 
same area as Greece as she has been doubled as a result 
of two wars. 

The part that we would cede (cazas of Sali-Chaban, 
Cavalla and Drama) has not a surface of over 2,000 square 
kilometres. It represents, consequently, in extent one 
sixtieth of probable compensations in Asia Minor with- 
out counting the compensation of Doiran-Ghevgheli, which 
we shall also demand.^ It is true that from the point of 
view of wealth the value of the territory that we are to 
cede is very great and out of proportion to its size. But 
it is clear that it cannot be compared in wealth to that part 
of Asia Minor the cession of which we must work for. 
The matter of ceding Greek populations is certainly of the 
greatest importance. But if the Greek inhabitants of the 
portion ceded may be estimated at 30,000, that of the part 
of Asia Minor which we should receive in exchange can be 
reckoned at 800,000 souls; this is, therefore, twenty-five 
times superior to that which we would cede. 

Moreover, as I have already exposed in my first mem- 
orandum, the cession of the district Drama-Cavalla will 
take place on the formal condition that the Bulgarian gov- 
ernment buys up the property of all those who may desire 
to emigrate from the ceded territory. And I have no doubt 
that all of our compatriots, to the last one, after having sold 
their property, will emigrate to the New Greece which will 

1 Demand of Greece's own ally, Serbia. 

557 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

be established in Asia Minor to swell and strengthen the 
Hellenic population there. 

Sire, under these circumstances I firmly believe that all 
hesitation should be put aside. It is doubtful — it is im- 
probable that such an occasion as this which presents it- 
self to us to-day will be offered again to Hellenism that 
she may render so complete her national restoration. If 
we do not participate in the war, whatever may be its issue, 
the Hellenism of Asia Minor will be definitely lost to us. 
Because if, on the one hand, the Powers of the Triple En- 
tente gain the victory, they will share among themselves 
or with Italy both Asia Minor and the remainder of Tur- 
key. If, on the other hand, Germany and Turkey are vic- 
torious, not only will the 200,000 Greeks already driven 
from Asia Minor have no longer any hope of returning to 
their homes, but the number of those who will be driven 
out later may take on alarming proportions. In any case 
the triumph of Germanism will assure for itself the absorp- 
tion of the whole of Asia Minor. 

Under these conditions, how could we let pass this oppor- 
tunity furnished us by divine Providence to realize our 
most audacious national ideals? An opportunity offered 
us for the creation of a Greece absorbing nearly all the 
territory where Hellenism has predominated during its 
long and historic existence? A Greece acquiring stretches 
of most fertile land assuring to us a preponderance in the 
yEgean Sea? 

Strangely enough the general staff does not seem to be 
greatly attracted by these considerations. They fear, so 
they say, on the one hand the difficulty of administering 
new territories of so vast an area, and on the other hand, 
that by taking part in the war we may exhaust ourselves 
more than the Bulgarians who will take advantage of our 
weakness after the war to attack us. None can be blind 
to the first difficulty. But I think that it should not lead 
us to abandon the realization of our national ideals on this 
unique occasion Vhich presents itself to us to-day. More- 
over, the total of the results realized by the Greek adminis- 
tration in Macedonia proves that, in spite of countless diffi- 

558 



APPENDICES 

culties, this task is not beyond the force of Greece and 
Hellenism. 

The second fear is less justifiable. The Balkan wars 
have shown that we do not exhaust ourselves any more 
rapidly than the Bulgars. It is true, however, that dur- 
ing a number of years, until we organize the whole of our 
military power on the base of the resources in men which 
the recruitment in Greater Greece will yield, we will find 
ourselves, in case of war in the Balkan peninsula, in the 
necessity of retaining a part of our forces in Asia Minor 
in order to prevent a local uprising there — an uprising 
which is not probable for, since the Ottoman Empire will 
have completely ceased to exist, our subjects will be perfect 
and law-abiding citizens. However, the armed force neces- 
sary to this end will be furnished very rapidly by the Hel- 
lenic population itself of Asia Minor. And then, it is easy 
to guard ourselves against any Bulgarian peril by establish- 
ing for this period a formal understanding with the Pow- 
ers of the Triple Entente in virtue of which they will aid 
us in case Bulgaria should attack us in this interval. 

In my opinion, even without such an understanding, we 
would have nothing to fear from Bulgaria after the suc- 
cessful issue of a war in which we should have taken part 
in common. Bulgaria herself would be occupied by the or- 
ganization of the new provinces which she would have ac- 
quired. If she be blinded to the point of wishing to at- 
tack us, there is no doubt that Serbia has toward us an 
obligation of alliance and motives of gratitude. 

It is to be noted, however, that the cession of Cavalla 
does not make it in any way certain that Bulgaria will con- 
sent to leave her neutrality to cooperate with us and the 
Serbs. It is probable that she may insist either upon ob- 
taining these concessions in exchange merely for her neu- 
trality, or that she may demand that this cession be made 
to her now before the end of the war and, consequently, 
whatever may be the issue of the war. 

We cannot accept any of these conditions. If our 
participation in the war is checked in consequence of Bul- 
garia's attitude, we shall have kept unbroken the friend- 
ship and the sympathy of the Powers of the Triple Entente. 

559 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

And if we may not hope for such concessions as we might 
have obtained in exchange for participation in the war, 
we may at least expect with certainty that our interests 
will have the sympathetic support of these Powers and 
that we shall not be deprived of their financial aid after 
the war. 

I should add, moreover, that the train of events, as 
well as the proposition that has been made to accord to us 
in Asia Minor large territorial concessions, demonstrates, 
without any doubt, that the vitality which new Greece has 
shown has attracted to her the confidence of certain Pow- 
ers who look upon her as an important factor of reform in 
the Orient, while the Turkish Empire is in process of dis- 
integration. 

The support of these Powers will give us all the financial 
and diplomatic means of facing the difficulties inevitable 
in such a sudden aggrandizement. Greece, confident of 
this support, can follow courageously the new and ad- 
mirable road that opens out before her. Fortunately, Your 
Majesty is in the full vigor of age, not only to create by 
his sword a greater Greece, but also to consolidate this 
military achievement by a perfect political organization of 
the new State and to transmit to Your heir, when the time 
comes, a finished work, superhumanly great and such as it 
has been given to few princes to accomplish. 

I am Your Majesty's most humble servant, 

El. Venizelos. 



560 



APPENDIX 2 

CERTAIN ARTICLES OF THE GREEK 
CONSTITUTION 

Article 21. All authorities emanate from the nation 
and are exercised in the manner laid down in the Constitu- 
tion. 

Art. 22. The legislative power is exercised by the King 
and by the Chamber. 

Art. 23. The right of proposing laws belongs to the 
Chamber and to the King, who exercises this right through 
his ministers. 

Art. 31. The King appoints and dismisses his minis- 
ters. 

Art. 32. The King is the supreme head of the State; 
the Commander of the military and naval forces. He de- 
clares war, contracts treaties of peace, alliance, and com- 
merce; and communicates them to the Chamber with the 
necessary explanations as soon as the interests of the State 
allow. But commercial treaties and all treaties which con- 
tain concessions concerning which, according to other ar- 
ticles of the Constitution nothing can be decided without 
a law, or which impose personal burdens upon Greek citi- 
zens, have no validity without their ratification by the 
Chamber. 

Art. 33. No cession or exchange of territory can be 
made without a law. The secret articles of any treaty 
may not invalidate the articles made public. 

Art. 34. The King awards, in accordance with the law, 
all military and naval ranks and appoints and dismisses, 
likewise in pursuance of the law, all public officials, save 
when otherwise provided by law. . . . 

Art. 99. No foreign army may be admitted to the 
Greek service without a special law, nor may it sojourn in 
or pass through the State. 

561 



APPENDIX 3 

AN INTERVIEW WITH KING CONSTANTINE 

From The New York Times, June 14^ 1917 

By Adamantios Th. Polyzoides 

When Mr. Polyzoides was in Athens last year he 
obtained, as correspondent of The New York Times, 
the following interview with King Constantine, which 
he was pledged not to publish except by special per- 
mission of the King or in the event that he died or 
was deposed. His dethronement by the Entente now 
meets the condition. 

Copyright, 1917, by The New York Times Co. 

It was a few days after the burning down of the royal 
villa of Dekelia and its beautiful forest on July 14, 1916, 
that I was permitted to meet his Majesty, having a few 
days before expressed my desire to see him previous to my 
return to America. King Constantine received me in his 
study, where a few moments earlier he was in consultation 
with his Premier, who then, as now, was Alexander Zaimis. 

I found him in the best of spirits, as if his life had 
never been endangered in the midst of that conflagration 
in which his immediate suite and nearly two score soldiers 
lost their lives while fighting the flames surrounding his 
estate from every side, and as if he was not saved as by 
miracle twice in fourteen months. 

"It was terrible, and yet a most remarkable experience, 
being in the midst of that hell," the King said in answer 
to my inquiry. "Yet I never felt any fear for my life; in 
fact, I never cared much for it," he went on with a smile. 
"I never cared much for my throne, either, and if I per- 
sist in keeping both, I do it for the sake of Greece, and 
for the sake of the Greek people, the only ones for which 

562 



APPENDICES 

I care, and which are dear to my heart. I am saying 
this not because I want to boast of my love for Hellas, 
but in order to let my people know my sentiments, as I 
know their feelings toward me. 

"Yes, the Greek people love their King, and if I ever 
lose my throne, it will not be because the Greek people 
will take it from me. I know it and I want America 
to know it on the day when this may possibly happen. 
I know that it is the Entente, and not the Greek people, 
that will have none of me. This effort to oust me is 
just as old as my first objection to the Dardanelles expe- 
dition; it dates from the day when, in the French Lega- 
tion of Athens, the Entente Ministers assembled and talked 
about the possible changes in the line of succession to 
the Greek throne, while everybody, myself included, was 
despairing of my life, threatened by pleurisy, a year ago. 
I did not die then, and I did not perish in the fire of 
Dekelia, but in all this time the ill-feeling of the Entente 
against me has never relaxed. 

"Well, I could be the most popular of all Kings, as 
far as the Entente Allies are concerned, had I joined 
in their struggle and led my people to ruin and destruc- 
tion. Of course, I would lose nothing, no matter how 
great the sacrifices and the misery of my people, be- 
cause such is the lot of Kings. The Belgians and the 
Serbians may be destroyed, but their Kings lose nothing 
of their former comforts. I would be comfortably in- 
stalled wherever the Greek capital was transferred after 
Greece was reduced to nothingness following a crushing 
defeat." 

"Would it be defeat necessarily.''" I asked. 

"There would be something worse than all the defeats 
the Greek race has suffered since it has been on earth," 
the King answered gravely. "No, Greece could not fare 
any better than any other small nation has fared on 
entering this war. We simply could not withstand, for 
longer than a fortnight, the blows of the Austro-German 
and Turco-Bulgarian troops launched against us. And 
the Greek Army once destroyed, all the powers of the 
universe could not save the Greek race from a Turco- 

563 



APPENDICES 

Bulgarian onslaught, carried in full force against our 
noncombatant populations in European and Asiatic Greece, 
with the whole world simply looking on. 

"This is the fate that threatens the Hellenic people 
when they enter the war, and from this fate I want 
to save them, sacrificing for this, if need be, not only 
my throne, but my life as well. I want to save the Greek 
nation from a catastrophe from which it will never re- 
cover, and this catastrophe, that I can see every day 
looming larger and larger, is this terrible world war. I 
may lose in my effort, but I shall know to the end of 
my days that I did my duty as a man, a Greek, and a 
King. I shall know that I kept my oath to my God, 
to my country, and to history, which, like God, is 
eternal." 

"To force Greece into the war was the easiest way 
to my personal glory and benefit," continued his Majesty 
after a slight pause, "but I, the absolutist, the autocrat, 
the believer in the divine right of kings, as my op- 
ponents are prone to call me, was held down and nailed 
down to a pacifist policy simply because all the people 
of Greece who will do the fighting when war comes are 
against this war, and against sacrificing themselves in 
a vain effort, which will do nobody good. 

"They call this struggle a fight for the rights of the 
weak and the oppressed, and yet they want us to be- 
lieve that Greece is neither weak nor oppressed, when 
in fact we fare little better than Belgium. Is it in order 
to uphold our constitutional liberties? Rubbish! The 
present war takes little account of such small matters. 
Your liberty and your constitution count only when they 
are of any use to the Entente in a material way. If your 
Parliament stands for war, it is good; if it votes for 
peace, it is merely a band of crooks in the pay of Ger- 
many. These high-sounding names for lofty ideals and 
popular liberties have value only when they serve to 
rouse a people and march them to the slaughter house 
called nowadays 'the front.' If for the same ideals 
people want to sit quiet and mind their own business, 
then they are nothing." 

564 



APPENDICES 

"But there are those who maintain that Greece, in- 
stead of sitting quiet and minding her own business, has 
been openly favorable to the Kaiser and Germany?" I 
remarked. 

"You are a newspaperman," his Majesty retorted, "and 
you know how easily you can give life to a lie, when 
you have at your disposal all the means necessary to 
spread it, while the party which is mainly affected by 
your lie is gagged, and the freedom of speech and the 
benefit of a hearing are denied to it. Greece thought she 
was entitled to have a divided sympathy in this war. 
Still the general feeling was never in favor of the Ger- 
mans, just as the general feeling, although favoring the 
Entente, was never in favor of committing suicide for 
the sake of the Allies. I spoke on this score many a 
time, and public opinion in and out of Greece knows my 
views." 

"Whose victim then is Greece.^" I asked. 

"Originally she was the victim of the allied Ministers 
in Athens," King Constantine replied. "The Minister 
of France (M. Guillemin) and the Minister of Great 
Britain (Sir Francis Elliot) are acting more as Venizelist 
district leaders than as representatives of the best in- 
terests of their own countries. They want simply to put 
M. Venizelos in the place where I am now sitting. Is 
this wanted by their own Government? I have no means 
of knowing, but I doubt it. The Ministers of Russia 
(Prince Demidoff) and of Italy (Count Bosdari) pro- 
fess to be friendly to me personally, but they naturally 
cannot be very friendly to the cause of Hellas. Of the 
neutral Ministers, some are absolutely noncommittal, but 
the rest are Venizelists, and I am sorry to add that even 
the Minister of the United States (Garret Droppers) 
must be included in the latter category. 

"On the other hand, for I want to be fair, I think 
that an American Minister who is hostile to a King as 
a matter of principle is more popular in his own country. 
Think of a Royalist American! I do not expect that, 
of course, but I thirst for a square deal, and this 
has not been given to me from America, except in very 

565 



APPENDICES 

few instances. People there seem to believe more readily 
their cousins across the Atlantic than they do the King 
of the Hellenes. This is natural as long as Athens com- 
municates with America through London. But the most 
curious thing of all is that whenever I happen to speak 
my mind to an unprejudiced American I always find 
him on my side." 

We then spoke of the war. The King seemed tired of 
the eternal discussion of that subject. Still when I asked 
him what he believed to be the possible outcome of the 
struggle, he answered : 

"Germany will not be defeated, and the Entente will 
not be defeated. This thing is bound to drag on for 
years, and peace will only be signed when all the bel- 
ligerents reach the end of their resources. This peace 
will not take into account the small nationalities ; neither 
will it establish permanent rules of righteousness and 
justice. He who at the end of the war will be stronger 
than the others will get the best terms, and the we?ik 
and small will have to pay, as has been the case always 
since the world existed. 

"I am not saying this for Greece alone; the rule applies 
to every little country which can neither get free nor 
live by itself. Belgium and Serbia when freed will owe 
their liberty to some one else, and he will get the best 
of their freedom, as is the case with Navarino and Greece. 
This is the reason why I want Greece to stay out of the 
war, and the Greek people are clever enough to view 
the situation in the same light. 

"Another thing that I want you to bear always in 
mind is that the Entente Powers have always been, they 
are to-day, and they will be in the future, more pro- 
Bulgar than they have ever been pro-Greek. And this 
is another reason why we are neutral at this time. Bul- 
garia to-day, even when fighting against the Allies, has 
more friends in London and Paris than Greece has had 
since the days of Hugo and Beranger. It is a case of 
incurable Bulgaritis, this, from which all the Entente 
Powers are suffering. Unfortunately I can do nothing 
in this case," the King concluded laughingly. 

566 



APPENDICES 

He had kept me nearly an hour; the Minister of War, 
General Callaris, was waiting to see him; the Serbian 
Minister, Mr. Balougditch, was also announced; I rose to 
take leave of his Majesty. He likewise rose, a towering 
figure over six feet tall. 

"When do you expect to sail for America?" he asked 
me. 

"In two days," I answered. 

"Do you want to ask me any other question.''" 

"Yes, your Majesty," I replied, and my question was 
this: "What shall I tell people when they ask me why 
the fort of Rupel was delivered to the Germans and the 
Bulgars?" 

"Tell them," his Majesty said gravely, "that the salva- 
tion of Greece is immensely more precious than all the 
Rupels of the world. In fact, the salvation of Greece is 
more precious than the Greek throne, and the life itself 
of Constantine," 



567 



APPENDIX 4 

HOW "RECRUITS" TO THE "ANTI-BULGARIAN 
ARMY" WERE OBTAINED 

In regard to the activities of the revolutionists who have 
employed the funds lent them by the Entente powers to 
endeavor to overthrow the constitutional government of 
Greece, a committee of the Mussulman members of the 
Greek Congress waited upon the American minister in 
Athens on November 24, 1916, and presented to him the 
following list of acts committed against the Mussulman 
citizens of Greece, loyal to the constitutional government, 
by revolutionary agents: 

Six thousand Mussulmans of Kailar have been carried off 
by force and compelled to do hard labor on the construction 
of roads. Two thousand of these Mussulmans have dis- 
appeared. 

The Mussulmans of Vlevitsa were required to furnish 60 
Turkish pounds ransom. The day after this demand was 
made, the stock of oats of the village was seized and car- 
ried off, together with the mules belonging to the villagers. 
The village priest and six of the inhabitants, who refused to 
pay the sum demanded, were put to death. 

At the village of Tzartzilar, near Cazani, the mayor of 
the village was killed while at work in his fields, and his 
horses stolen. 

Each of the inhabitants of the district of Kailer has been 
forced to supply the Allies with six sheep or other food 
animals. 

The horses, mules and donkeys, the stocks of wheat and 
the food animals of about seventy villages between Gram- 
maticovo, Katranitza and Fiorina have been requisitioned 
without payment. 

At Vodena 18 Mussulmans were arrested, and those who 
568 



APPENDICES 

were young among the inhabitants of the village were sent 
to Kaimaktchalen to be used in construction work. 

At Karatzova, between four and live thousand Mussul- 
mans were forced to work on construction work, unpaid. 
The plow animals and stocks of seed wheat were con- 
fiscated. Each day ten Mussulmans were arrested and sent 
to Saloniki. 

At Verria, the Mussulmans were forced to serve in the 
revolutionary army or to pay $20 to buy themselves off. 
One Mussulman, Riaz-Ahmet, was killed. 

In the Chalcidic peninsula conditions have been shown, 
upon official investigation, to have been even worse. The 
Chalcidic peninsula is under the military control of the 
Allied Orient armies. 

September 7, a recruiting officer of the revolutionary 
movement arrested and imprisoned Dr. A. Zafiropoulos ; 
Ch. Zographos and G. Gerozaho, farmers; Z. Gerozaho, 
public accountant; Demetrios Papoulis, a merchant, and 
others. 

September 10, they put to death at Calatists B. Kym- 
ourtzis, Sarafianos, from whom they took 100 pounds, 
Demetrios Stinys, and his wife. Nicholas Samaras was 
first mortally wounded and then had his skull beaten in 
with the butt of a rifle; C. Catacolo was wounded in the 
feet; A. Catacolo and Caramessalas wounded, mortally, in 
the head; Demetrios Safourla in the left arm, and A. 
Caratzina badly wounded in the right leg. 

At Vassilika the justice of the peace, Mr. Nicholas 
Didachos, Sacoudis and ten others were arrested and sent 
to Saloniki where they were imprisoned. In the same vil- 
lage, the mother and two sisters of Hercules Patica, who 
had escaped, were imprisoned in his stead. The village 
priest, Papajoannou, and all his family were first tortured 
and then imprisoned for aiding the escape of Patica. 
They burned the furniture of G. Tetradis's two sisters, 
because Tetradis had also escaped their "recruiting." 

September 19, the revolutionists at Polygro forced Greg- 
ory Sinopoulos to sing his own requiem. Then they hanged 
him. 

At Vavados, they arrested member of Congress Trago- 
569 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

nos, Ath. Cotsanos, Basil Cianos, G. Cianios, and the 
women of their families, and then set the village afire. 
They shot Stavros Cardalias. 

Early in October at Portaria they arrested three veterans 
of the late wars, and while taking them to prison, shot them 
in the back. 

At Ormylie, they executed Police Commissioner Patri- 
archeas, cut off his head and paraded it through the neigh- 
boring villages to terrorize the inhabitants. 

On October 18, Lefkis, a lieutenant in the revolutionary 
army, accompanied by a number of soldiers of the Na- 
tional Defense, or former policemen, came to the village 
of Stavros in the region of Vrasna, in Chalcidic, for the 
purpose of "recruiting." He published a proclamation 
and waited results. But he waited in vain. Not a single 
volunteer was forthcoming. All the reservists of the vil- 
lage had taken refuge in the neighborhood, determined to 
resist any attempt at arrest on the part of the revolution- 
ists. Lefkis, seeing that no result came of his proclama- 
tion and resolved not to give up, appealed to the priest of 
Stavros, a man seventy years old, and ordered him to turn 
over the recalcitrants to the revolutionists without delay. 
The priest, without a tremor, answered the demand by this 
simple phrase: 

"The reservists will not enlist until the king calls them." 

Lefkis, greatly enraged, ordered his men to hang the 
aged priest immediately, to set fire to his house, and to 
burn his family alive. 

Despite this not a single sound recruit was procured! 

On October 20, another band of revolutionists, on "re- 
cruiting duty," after having in vain brought disorder into 
the villages of Baltja, Dremiglava, Langada, Aivati, mis- 
treating everywhere the families of reservists, suddenly en- 
countered the reservists and opened fire upon them with a 
loss of one killed and two wounded. To avenge these 
losses, the chief of the revolutionists, ex-Major Diamanto- 
poulos, accompanied by sixty men, attacked Langada the 
following day, took possession of it without difficulty, and 
brutally beat Mayor Papageorgiou and Elie Bossinaki be- 
cause they had not furnished any "volunteers" to the 

570 



APPENDICES 

National Defense. Before leaving the town the com- 
mander had six houses set on fire, and put to death three 
Turks whom he found on his way and whom his men had 
taken pains to relieve of their money before executing 
them. 

The band continued to go through various villages on its 
"round of recruitment" without being able to recruit any- 
body. Everywhere that it passed, the unfortunate vil- 
lagers were maltreated and their houses burned and pil- 
laged. Near Dremiglava the revolutionists set fire to 160 
barns, destroying an enormous stock of bran and a great 
number of beasts of burden. Here, too, six houses were 
reduced to ashes. . . . 

The English, who passed through the district of the 
"anti-Bulgarian action" of the "National Movement" esti- 
mated the damage done at about $160,000.^ 

On November 2, 1916, it was learned in Athens that ten 
loyalist inhabitants of Castoria had been arrested in that 
town by the Venizelists. Three were reported to have 
been shot out of hand on a charge of espionage; the re- 
mainder were tried by "court martial." Similar measures 
were taken in almost every border town to "stamp out 
royalist sentiment," as Mr. Venizelos put it. 

The ministry of foreign affairs in Athens also officially 
reports as follows: 

On March 2, 1917, twenty French cavalrymen under 
command of an officer suddenly arrived at the Zidani 
monastery, near the village of Servia. They imprisoned the 
aged mother of the superior of the monastery, her maid- 
servant and her nephew. They arrested Superior Caliniko, 
four monks, and, the notary of Servia, who had sought 
refuge thereafter having been hunted out of his office and 
out of the town hall in Servia. These six persons, the 
superior, the four monks and the notary, were shot out of 
hand in the courtyard of the monastery without trial of any 
kind. Afterwards the soldiers pillaged the monastery. 

Other French detachments killed three residents of the 
village of Lougani, and two of the village of Grapis. 
These acts, committed in the " neutral zone " in which the 

1 "Bulletin Hellenique," No. 4, November 5, 1916. 

571 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

French have assumed the responsibility of maintaining 
order, have aroused the greatest indignation throughout the 
whole of Greece. 

The Greek government has protested vigorously against 
these unheard-of acts, committed on the threshold of Thes- 
saly. Measures are being taken to prevent any acts of re- 
taliation by the local population vehich might serve as an 
excuse to the foreign troops to invade the territory whose 
integrity was guaranteed by the Entente note of January 
8, 1917. 



572 



APPENDIX 5 

ITALIAN OPINION ON THE ALLIED POLICY IN 
GREECE 

RASTIGNAC IN "LA TRIBUNA," OCTOBER 10, 1916 

Let us proclaim aloud the truth even though it be dis- 
agreeable to the Allies. In this long political crisis, the 
one personality that counts at Athens is King Constantine. 
He, at least, knows what he wants and seeks no conceal- 
ment of it, and no one can reproach him with being unde- 
cided or equivocal in his position. 

It is truly surprising that Mr. Venizelos to push through 
his program of intervention, to fulfil his anti-governmental 
(if not anti-constitutional) plans, feels the need of leaving 
the capital of the kingdom, which is the actual seat of the 
Government of the crown and which consequently should be 
the most propitious, favorable and appropriate place to ac- 
complish any change. His departure from Athens is Veni- 
zelos's declaration of failure, and the eiFective confirmation 
of the completeness of the king's influence upon the public 
opinion of the country. Venizelos gone, Athens remained 
neither shaken nor agitated; she has kept her stubborn atti- 
tude, faithful to the policy of the king and hostile to that 
of the minister whom the king had dismissed on three oc- 
casions without protest from the people and without being 
called to account by them for it. . . . 

After all, what does Venizelos represent and what does 
he personify that the Allies should repose such confidence in 
him? Not the people, certainly and surely not the king, 
from whom he is widely separated and with whom he is in 
irreconcilable contrast. Thus we find ourselves outside the 
field of reality and consequently outside the field of poli- 
tics, which lives and is nourished upon reality. We are 
therefore wrong. 

573 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

The sedition of Venizelos solves no problem ; it leaves all 
problems as they were, or complicates them still further to 
the detriment of the Allies. The policy that the expedition 
of Venizelos represents is not the policy that the inhabitants 
of Greece choose to-day, or which they wish to see realized. 
The authority and the prestige of Venizelos are gone, and 
the opinion and the sentiment of the Greeks are hostile and 
inimical to the leadership of Venizelos. 

ARNALDO FRACCAROLI IN THE "CORRIERE BELLA 
SERA," NOVEMBER 7, 1917 

Every day telegrams from western Europe sent out by 
various important news-agencies bring echoes from London 
and Paris — especially Paris — of that dear desire so long 
and so obstinately nurtured in spite of everything; every 
day the diplomacy of the Legations in Athens — especially 
the French Legation — takes some steps, makes some move, 
presents some note, with the purpose of arriving at this re- 
sult: the intervention of Greece in the war — in spite of 
everything. Every day sheaves of telegrams from Saloniki 
and Athens recount ferment in Athens against the king and 
in favor of the Allies, agitation among Greek officers ex- 
asperated at the inaction to which the Government's policy 
condemns them, desertions in mass to join the new army of 
national defense being fabricated at Saloniki. They state 
that the king's government is now no more than a shadowy 
political and diplomatic fiction since all the people of Greece 
are trembling in body and soul in sympathy with that 
"provisional government" which Mr. Elephtherios Venizelos 
founded in Crete and afterwards transferred to Saloniki; 
that King Constantine has on his side only a tiny group of 
politicians and pro-Germans; that Mr. Venizelos has with 
him the whole soul of the nation, the whole people, the en- 
tire army. 

This is the sort of thing that is daily set forth in the 
telegrams which my excellent French and English friends 
send daily to their newspapers. 

Well— shall I tell the truth.? After all, it will be better 
for all concerned. 

514s 



APPENDICES 

The truth is precisely the contrary of all of that! . . . 

King Constantine has a point of view of his own and 
amongst the ideals of civilization for which the Allies are 
fighting is also that of respecting the point of view of 
others. . . . 

Has King Constantine really choked down and trampled 
upon the ideals of his people? Has he actually prevented 
his people from realizing any imperious desire to enter the 
war on the side of the Allies ? Is it really he, the king, who 
does not want war? 

Let us for once in a way make a good job of telling that 
truth which not one of our Allies can be resigned to see 
and confess : it was never the Greek sovereign alone who did 
not want war; it was Greece itself; it was the Greek people. 
The sovereign only interpreted the sentiment of the people. 
Far from commanding, or imposing his personal will. King 
Constantine has only followed the will of the country. The 
country did not want war. What is more, the country does 
not want war now. 

Proof of this assertion ? They are obvious and complete. 
If the king had not interpreted and followed the will of the 
people, the people would have forced him to change his mind 
or would have turned him out. When a people wants war 
really, nobody can prevent it. Resistance only provokes 
revolution. 

For some time certain politicians and diplomatists — with 
-that deep subtlety of intuition which diplomatists have dis- 
played in this war ! — have nursed the hope that precisely 
that might come to pass. The interventionist party, cap- 
tained by Venizelos, maintained this. The interventionists 
are few, but they made a big noise. They shouted that the 
whole people was with them, that the king was combatting 
the will of the people and the ideals of the nation. But 
the people, alas ! remained unimpressed. 

In the absence of proof to the contrary, those who wished 
to believe in the desire for intervention of the Greek people, 
believed. But now proof has appeared. Mr. Venizelos 
himself has furnished it — and it has proved just the op- 

575 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

posite. For, to call things by their real names, the insur- 
rectional movement of Mr. Venizelos has resulted in decided 
failure. To believe anything else, one has to have a large 
dose of simplicity in one's makeup. 

Venizelos is indisputably a very cunning man. He is 
certainly one of the cleverest politicians of the day in 
managing events, especially in placing himself in the light 
that best suits him. . . . But he is a manipulator, not a 
crusader or a creator. He failed to understand, or at least 
he pretended not to understand, the real sentiment of the 
people whom he flattered himself he guided. A cardinal 
error for a politician ! So long as he insisted that he had 
the will of the people in his pocket and claimed to be their 
spokesman and guide, there were always some who believed 
it. But the moment he launched forth into adventure, that 
he abandoned his flag and uttered his cry of appeal, then 
the perfect and incontrovertible proof was forthcoming 
that he was backed by very few people indeed — exceedingly 
few. And that is where Venizelos, cunning politician that 
he is, overshot his own cunning: the truth was revealed by 
the negative result of his departure. 

What aid has the insurrectional movement created by 
Venizelos brought the Allies? How many combatants has 
he been able to gather together after two years of propa- 
ganda and two months of his "provisional government of 
the committee of national defense," favored as he has been 
in every way — with ships, money and assistance of every 
kind from those who have believed in him? Two thousand 
men! I do not know what delusions Mr. Venizelos har- 
bors; but the delusions of those who still believe in him 
must be remarkable ! 

This curious Greek phenomenon must be studied with a 
free mind and without prejudice, with the independent im- 
partiality of a spectator so as not to reach a false con- 
clusion through sympathy or antipathy. Just one thought 
in mind: the interest of the Allies. ... In this way we 
may ask ourselves what real advantage, what aid can come 
to the Allies from the provisional government of Saloniki? 
We have seen what there is to expect: in two months, with 
unheard-of effort, two thousand men ! And to arrive even 

576 



APPENDICES 

at that result, we have had to pay out ten millions! 
[Drachmae, that is $2,000,000.00.] . . . 
The game is not worth the candle ! 

"CORRIERE BELLA SERA," NOVEMBER 11, 1917 

Greece does not wish to enter the war at any price. . . . 
The Greek people are with the king because the king is 
against war. The Greek army is with the king. It is only 
necessary to live in Athens a very short time to be convinced 
of the admiration, the devotion that is accorded King Con- 
stantine by the Greek people. When the king passes in 
the street, he is cheered. When he is spoken of, it is always 
with enthusiasm. In theater, music hall or moving picture 
show, the slightest allusion to the king produces a delirious 
demonstration. 



577 



APPENDIX 6 

THE LIBERAL PARTY OF GREECE AND 
E. K. VENIZELOS 

During the period between Venizelos's resignation in 
March and his return to power after the elections of June 
13, the Cretan visited Egypt. Here he was able to renew 
ties with the British government and especially with the 
Foreign Office which he had originally formed at the Lon- 
don conference of 1912. Of the close nature of these ties 
even the French were not ignorant. M. Gabriel Hanotaux 
wrote in December 1912: ^ 

"Engaged in a decisive game which doubtless will not be 
played again, will the astute minister [Venizelos] try to 
carry it through at any cost ; and will he, by a cunning veer- 
ing around towards certain Powers, seek to obtain advan- 
tages which his allies' friendship awakened to suspicion 
might be inclined to dispute with him?" 

Certain it is that following his return from Egypt, Mr. 
Venizelos's policy seemed suddenly to crystallize in con- 
formance with every desire of Great Britain, while Eng- 
land's unquestioning support of the Cretan thereafter did 
not waver, even when her allies found more serviceable to 
the common cause to support other influences in the near 
East than Venizelos. It is interesting to note in this con- 
nexion that Mr. Venizelos's first revolutionary attempt in 
September, 1916, was staged in Crete, under the protect- 
ing guns of the British fleet; and that the British naval 
authorities landed men to restore order under the revolu- 
tionary government, shipping the loyal forces back to old 
Greece. 

i"La Guerre des Balkans et TEurope," pp. 203-4. 

578 



APPENDICES 

AN UNPUBLISHED STATEMENT MADE BY MR. 
VENIZELOS IN DECEMBER, 1915 

The statement was held at Mr. Venizelos's request "for 
the present," as he did not consider the time ripe for its pub- 
lication. Subsequent!}', however, he gave an almost identi- 
cal statement to a correspondent of "Le Temps," of Paris, 
using the notes that had been submitted him of this in- 
terview as the basis for that accorded "Le Temps." 

"I do not believe that King Constantine believes that 
I or my friends are plotting against him personally 
or against the idea of a constitutional monarchy in 
Greece. And if he should believe it, his belief may lead 
him into a course of action dangerous to himself and 
more dangerous still to the normal development of 
Greece in the way of intelligent self government. 

"For Greece is not ready for a republic and may not 
be ready for centuries. I have never believed a repub- 
lic suitable as a government for Greece at this epoch 
of her history. I have frequently told the king that 
Greece will need his family an hundred, perhaps two 
hundred years longer. . . . 

"The liberal party of Greece to-day is a one man 
party. If anything were to happen to its leader 
[Venizelos. himself] it would break up and its member- 
ship be affiliated with the old parties in Hellenic poli- 
tics. If there were to be a republic, I should be chosen 
President; but there would be no one in the liberal 
party to succeed me. Greece would be in the position 
of Mexico under Porfirio Diaz. That was bad for 
Mexico and it would be even worse for Greece." 

Professor A. Andreades of the University of Athens on 
the Liberal Party of Greece, January, 1917: 

"I have been and still am a liberal in the English 
sense or the American sense. But the liberal party of 
Greece as it is constituted to-day is not a party in 
that sense at all. For years I have tried to secure 
from Mr. Venizelos some platform, some program of 

579 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

what the liberal party of Greece stands for. There 
has never been any such platform, except the occa- 
sional speeches of Mr. Venizelos himself, and they do 
not follow any consistent plan that a political party 
could adopt as its program. The liberal party of 
Greece stands for whatever Mr. Venizelos wants — and 
that is not a healthy political condition for any State 
to be in." 

E. K. Venizelos to General Corakas, November 7, 1916: 

"When I decided to assume the responsibility of the 
political division of Greece I was not so foolish as to 
believe that our great national and political enterprise 
would immediately be crowned with success in one or 
even several months. I knew very well that the con- 
fusion in people's minds caused by the audacity and 
the suddenness of the enterprise together with the 
prejudice against me that the German agents since ex- 
pelled from the country so long cultivated among the 
reservists, and the demoralization due to so many vicissi- 
tudes already pased through, as well as the blind and ab- 
solute idolatry of the people for the person of our famous 
generalissimo, would constitute quite as much of an obstacle 
to our latest effort as the military weaknes of the Allies in 
tn the Balkan peninsula. 

"But I have never had the habit of basing my calcula- 
tions upon purely logical and historical foundations 
rather than upon the principle of psychological muta- 
tions, of general conceptions however indefinite, and 
on the law of violence and of domination which is 
stronger than all laws, written or unwritten, real or 
hypothetical. 

"The essential point of view of your thoughts and 
your actions must be the absolute conviction that the 
Entente — England and France — quite as much as the 
result of serious representations on our part as on ac- 
count of their military situation in the Balkan penin- 
sula — a situation which is becoming worse daily — have 
adopted our movement by substantial and active ap- 
proval to such an extent that our final ascendency 

580 



APPENDICES 

over the State of Athens [constitutional Greece] by 
means of the whole weight of the Entente which will 
crush the artificial wall which separates us from that 
State, is only a question of time for us. I hope, more- 
over, that your receipt of this letter will coincide with 
the beginning of a last and decisive action on the part 
of the Entente against Old Greece, an action whose 
preparatory manifestations will have constituted a se- 
rious prologue for it.^ If therefore, through having 
been deceived by misleading appearances, you are still 
wavering — you upon whom we have based a great part 
of the internal success of our enterprise against the 
hostile State of Athens, you will have to accept in 
your own mind and regard as absolutely certain, this 
final conviction [that is, that the Entente have adopted 
the Venizelist cause]. . . . 

"What remains, after all, of this famous king who is 
still your king? Not even the shadow of himself! 
His authority has been reduced to shreds by one con- 
cession after another. His war teeth have been pulled 
one by one. The specter of hunger and suiFering is 
already abroad throughout Old Greece, and will be- 
come still more terrible so soon as a new and very effi- 
cacious blockade shall be established.^ The soul of 
the people is already at the last limit of human en- 
durance; so near is this that one last blow — which is 
imminent — will suffice to finish it. . . . 

"Here, I must emphasize that we have already reached 
a definite arrangement with the representatives of the 
Entente. Our plan of supremacy is such that it will 
have been realized before the moment when, perhaps, signs 
of weakness on the part of Rumania shall have become ap- 
parent. That being the case, why weaken? ... At this 
moment you should be resolved to execute to the letter and 
without fear everything to the last detail of what we de- 

1 The letter was written just a week before Admiral Dartige du 
Fournet's demand for the surrender of the arms of Greece. 

2 A month after the date of this letter the Allies declared, for- 
mally, their blockade of Greece, which the Venizelists put to such 
profit in extending their movement. 

581 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

cided in our private conferences and everything of a compli- 
mentary nature which Mr. R.^ on my order communicated to 
you recently. Success or failure depends often upon one 
minute. Our domination in the capital, even though it be 
achieved only in a negative way, will bring us little by 
little to be the masters of all that remains of Old Greece. 
To accomplish this it is necessary to get rid, at the proper 
moment, of all the persons designated, whoever they may 
be. Who is not with us is against us. 

"This confidential letter must be read and duly analyzed 
in a secret meeting of all the important persons, and you 
must inform me immediately afterwards of your efforts. 
. . . You must emphasize at your meeting that this letter 
embodies in final and irrevocable fashion my views as well 
as those of the Provisional government." ^ 

Note: On its publication in facsimile in Athens, Mr. 
Venizelos declared the above letter a forgery. I submit- 
ted it, however, to a dozen of his closest friends, including 
men who had worked with him in secretarial capacity and 
were familiar with his handwriting. All pronounced its 
authenticity unquestionable. One, still an ardent adherent 
of the Cretan, said: "It is not only Venizelos's hand- 
writing, it is his own peculiar style. It is the soul of 
Venizelos laid bare." 

EXTRACTS FROM AN INTERVIEW GIVEN BY VENI- 
ZELOS TO A CORRESPONDENT OF THE "CHICAGO 
DAILY NEWS," DECEMBER 30, 1916 

We are too busy fighting the Bulgars to make war on our 
fellow countrymen now. 

lEx-Minister Repoulis? 

2 Venizelos entrusted the letter to ex-Deputy Revinthis, one of 
his followers, to be delivered by hand to General Corakas. 
Revinthis, aware of the contents of the letter demanded $160,000 
of Mayor Bennakis of Athens not to turn the letter over to the 
judicial authorities. The ringleaders of the revolutionary plot 
offered Revinthis $100,000 for the incriminating document, but 
before the payment was made and the letter delivered, the failure 
of the Venizelist plot caused Revinthis to flee Athens. He was 
captured and the letter found on him. Arraigned in court, he 

582 



APPENDICES 

The barbarous atrocities committed by the royalists in 
Athens and the murder and pillage will result in the vin- 
dication of our party. King Constantine has climbed down 
from the throne. He is the leader of a political part of 
Greeks in opposition to mine. If Germany wins Constan- 
tine becomes an absolute monarch ; if the Entente wins I fail 
to see how the king can retain his crown. We have no 
sympathy with the doctrine of the divine rights of kings. 
Constantine's army has between 30,000 and 40,000 men. 
Its supplies have been sadly drained by the ten months' 
fruitless mobilization of last year. Much of the Greek 
war material was surrendered to the Bulgars and is now 
taking Greek lives. . . . 

We desire the Entente to recognize the nationalist 
government as the responsible government of Greece. This 
government is supported by the majority of the Greek 
people; opposed to it is the minority led by Constantine 
and composed largely of the military. We are exponents 
of what the Entente is fighting for — namely, liberty and 
justice. . . . 

The Entente has recognized our local administration and 
our ministers to the Entente were recognized yesterday. 

. . . The islands have heard of the provisional gov- 
ernment, but as yet they have seen little tangible evidence 
of it. 

Recruiting goes on apace because the islanders have an 
ingrained hereditary hatred of the Bulgars. 

. . . The blockade and reprisal measures against Athens 
as a punishment for the recent atrocities at first worked a 
hardship but that hardship has now been removed. . . . 
Unless we are officially recognized as the supreme govern- 
ment in Greece we cannot legally call to the colors Greeks 
residing in foreign territory. 

A second big thing we want of the Entente is the Greek 
navy, which the Entente seized from the royal marine. A 

admitted the role he had played in this business and admitted 
also that he had not delivered the letter to General Corakas. 
General Corakas, before the court, confirmed this and identified 
the letter as in Venizelos's handwriting and style. 

583 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

nationalist battleship sailing among the Greek islands and 
into the ports of old Greece would be more effective in 
stamping royalist sentiment out of the remaining islands 
than would years of talk. We have told the people of the 
islands that we and the Entente are in firm accord, but the 
islanders ask: "Where is the Greek fleet? " 



584 



APPENDIX 7 

AS TO CERTAIN CLAIMS MADE BY MR. 
VENIZELOS 

I. That he was ignorant that the Allies planned to use 
Greece as a base of military operations in Serbia, and pro- 
tested that violation of Greece's neutrality. 

Report of speech in the Boule of the Hellenes by Prime 
Minister E. K. Venizelos, session of October 4, 1915. From 
"La Politique de la Grece," by E. Venizelos: Paris, Im- 
primerie de I'Est. 1916. pp. 36, 37. 

" I do not wish to have my words misinterpreted, and I 
must declare to you that in the days when the announcement 
was made that a Franco-British expeditionary force was 
being sent to Saloniki, the Greek Government protested 
against this violation of neutrality. As I have already 
said, it could not remain indifferent in the face of dangers 
which, entirely apart from the violation of neutrality, might 
arise from the landing and passage through Greek territory 
of international contingents, for the idea was current in 
Greece that Serbian territory would actually be occupied 
and that the passage through Greek territory would be 
used by the Allies to put pressure upon Serbia to obtain 
concessions for Bulgaria. I was forced to declare to those 
powers, toward whom Greece is sincerely grateful, that, in 
so far as the passage through our territory and the viola- 
tion of our neutrality was concerned, I did not feel obliged, 
in view of the general situation and the point to which the 
war had progressed, to oppose their passage by force of 
arms; but that I was determined to confront the colossus 
of the two great powers with the feeble forces of Greece to 
resist any debarkation of troops which seemed likely to 
endanger Hellenic interests." 

585 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Same, session of November 3, 1915; op. cit. p. 150. 

Mr. Venizelos, addressing Deputy G. Theotokis of Cor- 
f ou : " I certainly should not refer to these matters if I 
did not feel that I must protest most energetically against 
your charges and express my surprise that as finished a 
statesman as you, and one so prominent, could mount the 
rostrum and accuse me of having provoked the debarkation 
of the Anglo-French army at Saloniki ! " 

Report of the Secret Session of the French Chamber of 
Deputies held on June 20, 1916. From " Le Temps," 
Paris, October 3, 1919: 

M. Delcasse reviewed the march of events in the Balkans 
in 1915. The elections which Mr. Gounaris conducted in 
Greece had resulted in favor of Mr. Venizelos, who was 
returned to power. The danger threatening Serbia could 
be met only were Greece to go to the assistance of Serbia. 
There was a defensive treaty between the two peoples. 
Mr. Venizelos said to us: 

" This treaty provides that in case Bulgaria attacks 
Serbia, in order to secure the cooperation of Greece, Serbia 
must furnish a force of 150,000 men at once. As a mat- 
ter of fact, forced to divide her forces to confront Germany, 
Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria, it will be impossible for 
Serbia to furnish these 150,000 men." And turning to the 
French and British ministers in Athens he said to them, on 
September 22, 1915, " Can you furnish me these 150,000.'' '* 

" To be frank," M. Delcasse declared, " the prospect of 
sending French soldiers out of the country when the enemy 
was on French soil worried me; I had never cared to con- 
sider such a prospect, for it was plain to me that Germany 
would direct her greatest effort against France, first of all, 
to try to crush us. Supported by Russia, by England, by 
Italy, by Spain, freed by virtue of her alliances and her 
understandings from the necessity of sparing a single one 
of her soldiers, what France had to do was to concentrate 
all her forces on the frontiers against which the German 
attack was directed." 

But Mr. Venizelos had asked a question, and had to be 
given an answer. " A favorable answer would permit him 
to sound the King of Greece." On September 23, with the 

586 



APPENDICES 

approval of the Government, M. Delcassd telegraphed our 
Minister at Athens: 

" You may say to Mr. Venizelos that the Government of 
the Republic, anxious to make it possible for Greece to ful- 
fill the obligations of her treaty with Serbia, is ready, for 
its part, to furnish the troops which have been requested." 

This telegram was immediately communicated to Sir 
Edward Grey, who replied the same evening: 

" This telegram so completely expresses my thought that 
I have telegraphed to our Minister in Athens to read it to 
Mr. Venizelos in the name of His Majesty's Government." 

M. Arthur Groussier interrupted M. Delcasse. 

" But you have just said that you did not think that any 
troops could be sent to Greece, and yet in the name of 
France you told Venizelos the opposite! Shame." 

And M. Renaudel: 

" And you spoke in the name of France ! That 's the 
kind of diplomacy we had! Luckily we are in secret ses- 
sion ! " 

And M. Lauche: 

" Setting a trap, in the name of France ! " 

M. Delcasse continued: " On September 24, therefore, 
Mr. Venizelos was assured of the cooperation of France 
and England. That same day we learned of the Bulgarian 
mobilization. ... If troops were sent out there, they would 
arrive too late to save Serbia. The junction of the Aus- 
trians and the Germans with the Turks, through Bulgaria, 
was effected, and when the expeditionary force arrived in 
Saloniki, Serbia was half crushed and our expeditionary 
force was almost immediately compelled to take the defen- 
sive," 

M. Delcasse added: "I heard somebody say: 'But if 
we had not been in Saloniki, the Germans would be there 
now.' 

" The time has come for straight talking, and I am here 
to speak out my mind. I wish to God the Germans were 
there, and not just with 250,000 or 260,000 men, as we have, 

587 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

but with 400,000, with 500,000 men. . . . There would be 
at least that many Germans less on the French front ! 

" Now you have the result of the Saloniki expedition ; it 
did not prevent the junction of the Germans with the Turks, 
through Bulgaria ; it did not save Serbia ; it did not prevent 
Rumania, previously much more circumspect, from making 
commercial treaties, first with Germany and then with Aus- 
tria; it did not prevent the government of the King of 
Greece from adopting toward us, and little by little accen- 
tuating, the hostile attitude with which you are familiar. 
But it did make easier for Germany the furious attack 
which she has been hurling at Verdun for the last four 
months." 

II. That in return for Greece's participation in the war 
on the side of the Entente, Greece was promised territorial 
concessions so extensive as to make possible " the forma- 
tion of a great and powerful Greece, no longer forced 
wrongfully to draw in her frontiers, hut restored to the 
frontiers within which in prehistoric times Greece exercised 
her sovereignty." 

Report of speech by Venizelos in the Boule of the Hel- 
lenes at the session of October 4, 1915, op. cit. pp. 13, 14. 

"In resigning as prime minister last February, I left the 
Government which succeeded me in the presence of the fol- 
lowing situation: the powers of the Triple Entente promised 
Greece very vast territorial concessions in Asia Minor, but 
asked no territorial sacrifices in return." ^ 

Report of a debate in the House of Commons from " The 
Times " of March 25, 1920; No. 42,368: 

Mr. Bonar Law, replying to Lieut. Commander Kent- 
worthy, said: ". . . Apart from any natural obligations 
she may have as an ally during a continuance of a state of 
war. Great Britain is bound by no secret agreement with 
Greece. . . ." 

Lieut. Commander Kentworthy pressed for a reply to his 
inquiry whether promises of military and financial support 

1 Cf. also Appendix 1. 

588 



APPENDICES 

to the Greek Government had been made by His Majesty's 
Grovernment in the event of a renewed conflict between 
Greece and Turkey. 

Mr. Bonar Law : " I have already answered that spe- 
cifically. JVe are under no obligations of any kind to 
Greece." 

III. That he launched his " revolution " against the 
Constitutional Government of Greece on September 25, 
1916, in response to overwhelming popular demand that 
Greece enter the war on the side of the Entente, and that 
it was certain that the moment the movement was begun, 
200,000 Greeks would rally to his standard to fight the 
Bulgarians. 

Excerpts from " La Grece Venizeliste (Souvenirs vecus)" 
by General Maurice Sarrail, Commander-in-Chief of the 
Allied Armies at Saloniki, published in " La Revue de 
Paris/' December 15, 1919. 

" The hereditary enemy, the Bulgar, was not at Noyon, 
but at the very gates of Macedonia. That fact created a 
strictly military situation which could not be ignored. Real 
or pretended patriotism and made-to-order martial spirit 
have before now in Europe proved the sole salvation of dis- 
credited political parties. The Venizelists were not long 
in realizing that the situation was capable of being ex- 
ploited, notwithstanding the repugnance of every Greek to 
militarism and especially to war. . . . 

" It was easy to see that whether he had any confidence 
in the force of the Entente or not, Venizelos counted 
rather upon time to bring a solution; he was in no hurry to 
seize time by the forelock; he seemed disposed to put off 
making any decision until events made it easy for him, or 
indicated, or rather dictated, a course for him to fol- 
low. . . . 

" I confess that I received the news of a revolutionary 
movement with the greatest skepticism. Had not Venizelos 
in May, after Rupel, proclaimed to all the world that he 
was ready to raise the standard of revolt ,'' ' I shall go to 

589 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

Saloniki/ he declared. ' I shall set up a provisional gov- 
ernment and make an appeal to the people to fly to arms 
against the Bulgarians; but I shall take no stand against 
the king.' A few days later he declared : ' The king will 
remain in Athens, deserted, with only the police force and 
the troops of the garrison. I shall propose to him to rally 
to the national cause and to put himself at the head of the 
army; if the king refuses, his fall will be proclaimed.' This 
was the plan. It was not even tried. . . . 

" I shrugged my shoulders when I was told that Veni- 
zelos was unwilling to return to Athens in the train of the 
Allies. A Minister of Greece need have no diffidence at 
playing the part of Talleyrand, especially if in addition to 
a Talleyrand's unscrupulousness he have also determination. 
In August Venizelos may have desired a revolution, but he 
had not the courage to launch it. The Venizelists, more 
venturesome than their leader, were possibly ready to throw 
off the royal yoke, but they feared to compromise them- 
selves. And yet Venizelos and Venizelists were eager to 
seize the power in Greece; but neither Venizelos nor the 
Venizelists were willing to take any risks to accomplish 
their end. . . . 

" This simple account of all that happened during those 
strange days shows how many times I might have broken 
up, nipped in the bud, a Venizelism which at that time [Sep- 
tember, 1916] was virtually inexistent. Without me, with- 
out the responsibility I was not afraid to take, what would 
have become of Venizelist Greece.'' . . . 

" Under these circumstances, what was the maximum 
military force that the Government of the National De- 
fense could throw into the balance on our side.'' In spite 
of the legend which has enveloped Greece for centuries, the 
force to be counted on was inconsiderable. . . . Neverthe- 
less, Venizelos did not despair, and like a new Sisyphus 
sought daily to bring to its goal the ever rolling stone of his 
mobilization. How the recruiting sergeants of the bygone 
days of the French monarchy must have trembled with de- 
light in their graves to watch their Hellenic brethren at 
work! How many villages had to be surrounded by con- 

590 



APPENDICES 

stabulary, the way we used to do it in the old days, before 
the required quota of recruits was forthcoming ! How much 
shooting had to be done in the Chalcidic Peninsula and 
elsewhere to keep the men of draft age from escaping by 
sea or into the forests ! How many deserters or those 
unwilling to serve had to be rounded up from hiding 
places. . . . 

" On September 22, the first battalion left for the front. 
They were not a bad-looking lot, but to have turned out 
only 1000 men when an appeal had been made to the whole 
of Greece was no cause for wild enthusiasm. ... I had 
received 1000 men of whose value as soldiers I knew noth- 
ing, whom I had taken in almost naked and whom I was 
forced to feed. ... In March, 1917, there was still only 
a division of three regiments of infantry and the nucleus of 
an artillery regiment ! . . . 

" But at what price had we bought this military aid } 
Here are some of the telegrams he [Venizelos] sent: 

(" In part of Crete, the mobilization was making a poor 
showing.) 

" ' Send Deputies to warm up zeal of the people — and 
give them each an expense fvmd of 500 drachmae.' 

(In certain of the islands the mobilization was very un- 
popular. The draft men kept clamoring that they would 
join the colors only when called out by the king.) 

*' ' Send the Cretan constabulary.' ^ 

(In Chios.) ' 

" ' Send supplies before publishing the mobilization de- 
cree.' 

(In Mytilene a town rebelled.) 

iThe brutality of the Cretan constabulary is almost as famous 
as that of the Cossacks. 

m 



CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE 

" ' I want a company of soldiers, and all outstanding 
financial claims must be paid.' ^ 

In Crete Venizelos insisted on having all war allowances 
paid up before he would even go to the island. In Samos a 
representative of the Venizelist Government, to hasten the 
tardy levies, had the nerve to suggest that we promise the 
Samians land grants in Asia Minor! A cabinet minister 
telegraphed to this same island: 

" ' If it is necessary, a reign of terror must be inaugu- 
rated.' " 

1 As the Allied fleet had used Mytilene as a base since 1915, 
there were accounts due the natives from the Allied authorities. 
Many of these were grossly padded, but here as in Crete and Sa- 
loniki, they all had to be paid before Venizelos would try to raise 
any soldiers. 



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